Salish Sea Early Music Festival returns with a Bach festival in May

||| FROM JEFFREY COHAN for SALISH SEA EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL |||

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival presents a MAY BACH FESTIVAL to include two performances of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach with guest musicians Maike Albrecht and harpsichordist Hans-Jürgen Schnoor from Lübeck, Germany. The two concerts take place at the Orcas Adventist Fellowship Church at 107 Enchanted Forest Road in Eastsound. Admission is by suggested donation (a free will offering) of $20 or $25. Those 18 & under are free. All are welcome regardless of donation. For additional information please see www.salishseafestival.org/orcas. (The website has been updated.)

A Bach Cantata: Ich Habe Genug on Wednesday, May 10 at 6:00 PM features soprano Maike Albrecht and harpsichordist Hans-Jürgen Schnoor along with baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan in a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sacred cantata Ich habe genug and other works by Johann Sebastian Bach including the Musical Offering trio sonata, the Italian Concerto for solo harpsichord and the Partita for solo flute.

The church cantata Ich habe genug (“I am content”), BWV 82 was composed in Leipzig in 1727 for the feast Purification of Mary and is one of the most often performed and recorded of Bach’s sacred cantatas. In this cantata, based on the Song of Simeon, Bach projects a feeling of serene contentedness with life and an expression of the experience of body and soul coming to rest and in complete harmony beyond anything that mere words can convey.

Concerti & Cantatas by Bach on Wednesday, May 24 at 6 p.m. features soprano Maike Albrecht, harpsichordist Hans-Jürgen Schnoor and flutist Jeffrey Cohan with baroque orchestra, to include Cantata 209 Non sa che sia dolore, the Suite No. 2 in B Minor and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 among other works by Johann Sebastian Bach. The baroque chamber orchestra will include violinists Carrie Krause and Elisabeth Phelps, violinist Lindsey Strand-Polyak and cellist Adaiha Macadam-Somer.

MAIKE ALBRECHT
Maike Albrecht studied piano at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen, singing at the Musikhochschule Luebeck and Lied-Interpretation at the Mozarteum Salzburg. In her many concerts as a soloist in oratorio and as a member of various ensembles for early music, her concert repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to the contemporary with special emphasis on the sacred works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart operas and German Lied of the 19th and 20th century including Schubert, Wolf, Mahler and Schoenberg.

HANS JÜRGEN SCHNOOR
Hans-Jürgen Schnoor is one of Germany’s leading performers on organ, harpsichord and fortepiano, and conductors of period instrument performances of the instrumental and choral works of Bach, Monteverdi, Mozart and others. Formerly cantor and organist at the St. Jakobi Church in Lübeck and Music Director at the Vicelinkirche in Neumünster for three decades, he is currently professor for harpsichord and early performance practice at the Lübeck Conservatory of Music. Mr. Schnoor has won numerous awards and has made many solo recordings, and currently specializes in the harpsichord works of J.S.Bach, the piano works and chamber music of Mozart, and German Lied from Schubert to Schoenberg.

JEFFREY COHAN
Flutist Jeffrey Cohan has performed as soloist in 25 countries as one of the foremost specialists on all transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the present.  He is the only person to win both the Erwin Bodky Award in Boston and the highest prize awarded in the Flanders Festival International Concours Musica Antiqua in Brugge, Belgium.  He has performed throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and worldwide for the USIA Arts America Program.  He has recorded for national radio and television in the United States and throughout Europe.  Many works have been written for and premiered by him, including five new flute concerti since 2000.  He is artistic director of the Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival in Washington, DC, the Black Hawk Chamber Music Festival in Illinois and Iowa, and the Salish Sea Early Music Festival.