VIOLINIST Rachel Podger will join Yorkshire Bach Choir for a feast of Bach choral and instrumental music at St Michael le Belfrey, York, on June 23.
The choir's final concert of their 2017-2018 programme will combine Bach motets with Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord, when Podger will be accompanied by Peter Seymour.
Podger, "the queen of the baroque violin", is enjoying a triumphant 50th birthday year, not least with her latest Vivaldi disc, featuring her take on Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) with Brecon Baroque, topping the classical charts.
Sandwiching Podger and Seymour's instrumental performance, Yorkshire Bach Choir complete the season with "the choral Mount Olympus that is JS Bach’s motets", as Seymour describes them.
"The motets represent some of Bach's most beautiful and mesmerising musical compositions. Each motet is crafted with complete originality and skill, using a dizzying range of choral techniques, from double-choir sonorities to canon, fugue and various intricate forms of counterpoint," he says.
"From the deeply felt and direct expressiveness of Jesu Meine Freude to the ecstatic, joyous conclusions of Singet Dem Herrn or Lobet Den Herrn, they encompass a huge variety of moods and musical styles. Taken as set, they represent an this endlessly fascinating area of Bach’s musical output that is always unmissable in live performance.
"I can think of no better way to end our season and this is sure to be a popular concert, made all the more exciting as we are joined by Rachel Podger, who is such an internationally renowned interpreter of the solo violin music of Bach."
The Yorkshire Baroque Soloists will be taking part too in this 7.30pm concert. Tickets cost £20, concessions £18, students £5, on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk.
Looking ahead, Rachel Podger will return to York on July 6 for the opening concert of the 2018 York Early Music Festival at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University Of York. At 7.30pm, she will direct Brecon Baroque in a programme of Vivaldi and Bach works entitled The Glories Of Venice, closing with The Four Seasons, the best known of Vivaldi's violin concertos. Tickets are on sale at £5 to £30 on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk/yemf.
Charles Hutchinson
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