Bach at the Sem schedule announced for 2016-17 academic year

Bach at the Sem enters its 24th season Sunday, Dec. 11, at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis with a selection of works by J.S. Bach performed by the American Kantorei under Music Director Dr. Maurice Boyer.

The concert will feature two complete cantatas — BWV 121 “Christum wir sollen loben schon” and BWV 147 “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben,” containing the beloved “Jesus, Joy of man’s desiring”;  the soprano title aria, “Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kömmt,” from BWV 151; and the Sinfonia from BWV 182 “Himmelskönig, sei willkommen.”

“Our 2016-17 season presents five masterful cantatas delving into and sonically embodying, with startling human and theological insight, the themes of the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ,” Boyer said. “It is our hope that these great works, in their varied utterance, will quicken the heart and stir all in attendance to deepened reflectiveness, abiding comfort and unquenchable joy.”

Another concert is planned for May 7, 2017, which will celebrate the Feast of Easter with three complete cantatas: BWV 6 “Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden”; BWV 104 “Du Hirte Israel, höre!”; and BWV 42 “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats.”

The American Kantorei, the performing group of Bach at the Sem, was founded in 1969 by its first musical director, the Rev. Robert Bergt, a member of the Concordia Seminary faculty. Following a hiatus of some 20 years, the Kantorei was resurrected in 1993 and has since presented to the communities of Concordia Seminary and St. Louis at large more than 100 concerts of the music of premier Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as music of Schütz, Buxtehude, Mendelssohn and other Lutheran composers.

All concerts begin at 3 p.m. in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus. Concerts are free and open to the public. For additional information, please call 314-505-7569, email [email protected] or visit www.csl.edu/bach.