This season, BCS will present "Feast on Bach," a special series of concerts that draw from the great festival cantatas Bach composed for the major feast days of the liturgical year. J.S. Bach spent a great part of his creative life as the Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where one of his main responsibilities was to provide music for the services at the church, both on Sundays and on special feast days. Bach wrote hundreds of cantatas during his tenure as Kantor; of these approximately 225 survive today. Taken as a whole, they represent a remarkable diversity of expression and profound insight into the theological depths that Bach explored in his efforts to bring to his congregation an understanding of the Biblical texts that formed the foundations of the services. The scoring for these cantatas is as rich and varied as the subject matter: prominent throughout are high Baroque trumpets, a unique variety of expressive wind instruments including the lesser known and plaintive oboe d'amore and oboe da'caccia. The choruses of the cantatas are among Bach's finest writing, and the solo writing ranges the gamut from brilliant coloratura to achingly introspective.

This year we will take a chronological journey through the Lutheran church year in a series of 3 concerts that feature some of Bach's greatest examples in this genre.

Feast III: Cantatas of Pentecost, Saints, and Reformation will conclude the series on April 15th, 2018 with these cantatas:

• O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34

• Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147

• Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19

• Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80

Here is the program booklet for our concert: Feast III Program.

You can find a short clip of our concert here.