While the performers are largely Baldwin-Wallace students and faculty members, each year internationally distinguished performers in the field are also invited as soloists and to give lectures and master classes. A particular feature of the festival is the rotation of Bach’s four large-scale choral works, it being the turn of the St. Matthew Passion in the 2008 festival, which will be performed as the final work to be given on 19 April.

Soloists will include soprano Nancy Argenta, Christine Abraham (mezzo), Frank Kelley (tenor) and Kevin Deas (bass), while Frederick Urrey and Curtis Streetman sing the roles of the Evangelist and Jesus. The Festival Chamber Orchestra and Baldwin-Wallace College Choir are directed by Dwight Oltman, who also conducts the opening concert on 18 April, an all-Bach affair given by members of the Opera Cleveland Orchestra, who will play the fourth Brandenburg Concerto and accompany the college choir and soloists in Cantatas No. 51 (with Argenta) and No. 131.

Also on the programme is the motet Lobet den Herrn, BWV 230. This year’s distinguished instrumentalist guests are the long-standing trio of violinist John Holloway, cellist Jaap ter Linden and harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen, who precede the concert on 18 April with a master class open free to the public. Later the same day they will also give a programme of chamber works entitled “Madcap, Red Priest, and Angel”, references to three of the featured composers, respectively, Veracini, Vivaldi and Leclair. Also on the programme are works by Corelli, Leclair, Boismortier and François Couperin.

The weekend before these two busy days, on 13 April, there is a preview of the festival at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights, when the Baldwin-Wallace Singers will sing Bach’s Cantata No. 108. For full details go to: www.bw.edu/academics/libraries/bach/festivals/bachfest/schedule06