Diverse, original, they ran the gamut from substantive and meaningful to revolutionary and wildly creative. Come up with a non-traditional way to share your music. Inspired by our rapidly-changing times, we added a new dimension to our workshop, asking our participants: Rethink the concert format. As workshop director, it was my great fortune to be joined by outstanding, forward-thinking assistant directors- first Sarah Zahorodni, and then Marika Basagoitia. But due to the pandemic, we held them virtually during the summers of 20. In normal times - and this coming summer - our Promisek Bach+ Workshops for string players happen in Bridgewater, Connecticut. So what better place for coming up with new ideas than a Bach workshop? Our concert stages are all the richer now for his fatherly duties. Some of Bach’s pieces, like the Art of the Fugue and The Musical Offering, were essentially his contrapuntal crossword puzzles - mathematical playtime, complete with reversible 'crab canons.' And The Well-Tempered Clavier, now performed worldwide, was simply Bach’s pedagogical exercise for his sons. His innovative, restless mind was constantly inventing. Bach’s musical activities were as numerous as they were diverse. I wanted to share some of those ideas, which I think will remain inspiring beyond the scope of 'pandemic performances.'īut first let's talk about Bach, whose incredible creativity and productivity served as our inspiration. Like the bright stretto entrances in Bach’s fugues, new ways to share music have been constantly popping up. While we all look forward to safer times in concert halls with live audiences, perhaps there has been a silver lining to these pandemic conditions. Working within the limitations of Covid times, they conceived of a startling array of new performance ideas, drawing on ideals, enterprise and sheer flights of fancy. Similarly, during the pandemic, the participants at my Bach workshops took the idea of 'inventiveness' to a new level.

* This article was co-written by Marika Basagoitia.īach titled 30 of his works 'Inventions,' but the word also describes his mind.Katie Lansdale Bach, Beyond the Concert Hall

Bach compositions crossword