Oregon Bach Festival
From Lane Co Oregon
In 1970 German organist and conductor Helmuth Rilling came to Eugene, Oregon, for a series of workshops and an informal concert. Since then, the Oregon Bach Festival–because of the efforts of Rilling, cofounder H Royce Saltzman of Eugene, and a veritable army of volunteers, musicians, audiences, and donors–has blossomed into one of the foremost celebrations of Bach’s music and influence in the United States.
That first collaboration between Rilling and Saltzman was modest, culminating in a concert of short choral and organ works. But in 1971, under the banner the "Summer Festival of Music," four concerts were added to the schedule, including a complete performance of Bach’s St. John Passion. Over the next few years, the Festival expanded to include performances of major choral-orchestral works, instrumental and chamber concerts, solo recitals, workshops, and master classes. As the decade closed, the event was renamed the Oregon Bach Festival to more clearly define the Festival’s location and to honor the composer who inspired the founders.
As an outgrowth of the University of Oregon’s School of Music, the Festival’s original home was Beall Concert Hall on campus, still an intimate setting for solo recitals and chamber music. In 1982, the Hult Center for the Performing Arts was built in Eugene. With its 2,500-seat Silva concert hall and first-rate facilities, the Hult Center enabled the Festival to expand and attract performers of the highest caliber.
Taking advantage of these new resources, the Festival celebrated Bach’s 300th birthday in 1985 in gala fashion. Performances included Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, Mass in B Minor, six Brandenburg Concertos, and ten more works. The season culminated with performances at the Hollywood Bowl at the invitation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.
While Rilling continues his remarkable artistic leadership, Saltzman stepped aside as lead administrator following the 2007 Festival. His successor, John Evans, was an award-winning producer for more than 20 years with the BBC, and head of its Radio 3 classical department since 1993.
The Festival’s concentration of major choral-orchestral works, educational offerings, and family atmosphere attracts an annual audience of more than 32,000. Visitors from every state and dozens of foreign countries have been welcomed to the Festival’s beautiful natural (and cultural) setting in the Pacific Northwest.
Such internationally regarded artists as Thomas Quasthoff, Arleen Auger, Sylvia McNair, Anthony Newman, Ben Heppner, Frederica von Stade, Bobby McFerrin, The 5 Browns, and Jeffrey Kahane have been introduced by the Festival to the community. Members of the Festival's resident professional orchestra and chorus come from organizations throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
While the great works of the past are the core of the repertoire, the Festival is also committed to the bold and the new. Acclaimed contemporary composers Osvaldo Golijov and Tan Dun have been in residence for premieres of their work. In 2000, Helmuth Rilling won a Grammy Award in the field of Best Choral Performance for the Festival's world premiere recording of Krzysztof Penderecki's Credo. The Festival’s 1994 world premiere of Litany was the first American commission of Arvo Pärt. A biannual composers symposium under the direction of the University of Oregon’s Robert Kyr brings emerging composers to Eugene to study and have their music performed.
Education has always been the heartbeat of the Festival. The Master Class in Conducting (a key program from the beginning) offers advanced training in choral and orchestral conducting. It has attracted students from Canada, Chile, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Venezuela, and Canada.
The Rilling format in Eugene, which combines master classes with concerts, has become the model for the Bachakademie Stuttgart that he founded in 1979, as well as for subsequent Bach academies in Eastern Europe, South America, and Asia.
Founded in 1997, the Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy is a national program that provides high school singers with an intesive ten day training and performance experience unavailable anywhere else. Its conductor, Anton Armstrong of St. Olaf College, is one of most the highly regarded choral teachers in the world.
Beyond the concert hall, Festival concerts have been syndicated on 248 radio stations coast-to-coast. National Public Radio, American Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, British Broadcasting Corporation, Voice of America, and numerous foreign syndications have aired performances from Eugene. Writers from The Times (London) and major papers from Germany and Spain have hailed the event. Critics from the nation’s major media, including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, and Washington Post have described the Festival as "remarkable," "excellent," and "astonishing."
The Festival’s catalog with Hänssler Records continues to grow—most recently, with recordings of Haydn's late masses, a collaboration with the Stuttgart Bachakademie to be complete for the major Haydn anniversary in 2009. Through high-profile distributors, such as the BMG record club and Amazon.com, Festival CDs are available to millions of listeners worldwide.
As Festival artistry has grown, so has funding from such public and private supporters as Lufthansa, Pepsi-Cola, KeyBank, the Oregon Community Foundation, the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paul Allen Family Foundation, and the Meyer Memorial Trust.
Important individual contributions have come from thousands of citizens. In particular, the gifts of the Scharf family and Bill Bowerman, UO track coach and founder of Nike, helped to perpetuate artistic funding at a critical time in the early 1980s. A $10 million endowment to help stablize operating funds was launched in 2004, and has surpassed its halfway point by 2007.
