Artistic Director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez took some time away from his preparations for the 2019 Victoria Bach Festival to share thoughts on next week’s concerts.
VBF: Give us some insights into the music you’ve chosen for the 2019 Festival.
Alejandro: We’re offering a variety of music from different eras and traditions throughout the week.
The Festival opens with the Del Sol String Quartet’s program of music by contemporary composers from an array of countries and faith traditions. There is a very spiritual atmosphere at both of the venues where they will perform (Our Lady of Loreto Chapel at the Presidio la Bahía in Goliad, and the Sanctuary in Edna), and those concerts will be very moving.
I’m excited about the Magnificent Bach concert on June 5 with big works by Bach for orchestra and choir, including the the Credo from the B minor Mass and the Magnificat, one of the most appealing pieces he ever wrote. These are works that show Bach’s brilliance and were written with lots of youthful energy.
Because there are so few portraits of Bach, we often have this image of him as an old man with a curly white wig. But a visit I made to Arnstadt, Germany, where Bach had one of his first positions, changed the image of Bach that I keep of in my mind. The statue they have in the plaza in Arnstadt is of Bach as a young man in his twenties, a youthful guy, rather fit and athletic, full of confidence, and brimming with musical talent. I mean, this is a guy who picked up a sack and made a four-month, 280-mile mountain trek to visit another organist he admired. That’s the Bach I imagine when we play this music.
I’m looking forward to the chamber music concert on Friday, June 7 of pieces for violin, clarinet, and piano by Bartók, Stravinsky, and Schoenfield,. This is music that, on paper, might be a little intimidating, but our Victoria Bach Festival performers are up to the challenge and will bring it to life beautifully. And I’m excited about the organ recital by Renée Anne Louprette on June 6 that features works by Bach showing some of the influences of different composers on his work, and then works by later composers that were influenced by Bach.
What do you hope listeners come away with after your Victoria Bach Festival performances?
Everywhere I perform, my hope is that it awakens something in people, that listeners are engaged, that the performance stirs your emotions. I want you to feel something. That’s why when I perform, I invest as much energy as possible, both in preparation and on stage. The VBF musicians and I aim to make music that is alive and vibrant.