Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard University
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The Bach Society Orchestra, known as BachSoc, is Harvard's premier chamber orchestra. The orchestra is staffed, managed, and conducted entirely by students. Each year, the members of the orchestra select the next year's conductor, always an undergraduate, via a 2/3rds majority vote. In turn, at the beginning of the new year the inaugurated conductor re-auditions every member of the orchestra, ensuring that the quality of the orchestra remains high.
BachSoc generally performs 4 times a year, with concerts featuring works for chamber orchestra - interpreted broadly to include intimate chamber pieces as well as mid-sized symphonies - taken from an eclectic set of historical periods. Works featured in recent seasons have included Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, Beethoven's Symphonies 6 and 7, Barber's Adagio for Strings, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (narrated by the Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes), and Villa-Lobos' Sinfonietta No. 1.
The Bach Society Orchestra has been an official undergraduate organization of the University since the 1954-5 academic school year. At its founding, the orchestra loosely devoted itself to performing the music of J.S. Bach; since then, the repertoire has grown to span the historical continuum from baroque to the contemporary. The orchestra's annual composition and concerto competitions have become respected institutions of the Harvard music scene. Alumni include cellist Yo-Yo Ma, composers John Coolidge Adams and John Harbison, conductors Alan Gilbert, Isaiah Jackson, Christopher Wilkins, Hugh Wolff, and Samuel Wong, and members of top American symphony orchestras.
An excerpt from History of Music at Harvard to 1972 by Elliott Forbes (Harvard UP: 1988) about the beginnings of BachSoc:
"The 'Musical Club of Harvard University,' as it was called upon its founding in 1898, took on new life after World War II. The idea of a chamber orchestra was broached for the first time in 1947. Then in 1951 an organizational meeting of the Harvard Music Club was called to discuss the forming of a chamber chorus and orchestra. The next year a catalogue was compiled of all Harvard and and Radcliffe musicians, and finally in the academic year 1954-55 were founded the Bach Society Chorus, Howard M. Brown '51, conductor, and the Bach Society Orchestra, Michael L. Greenebaum '55, conductor.
"The chorus was soon disbanded, but the Bach Society Orchestra has continued to flourish. Greenebaum continued as conductor for a second year, then as a graduate student. Starting with his successor Michael Senturia '58, who led the orchestra from 1956 to 1958, the conductor has always been an undergraduate, chosen either by an independent jury or by the orchestra members acting as a collective jury."
[edit] 2006-2007 Season
Aram Demirjian '08, Music Director
James Ferus '07, Megan Galbreth '08, and Cindy Wang '10, General Managers
Saturday, October 28th, 2006
Bach, Suite for Orchestra No. 1 in C major
Barber, Adagio for Strings
Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3 in A minor, "Scottish"
Friday, December 15th, 2006
Matthew Mendez '09, Concertino for Small Orchestra (In Three Movements)
Composition Competition Winner
Mozart, Symphony No. 38 in D major, "Prague"
Elgar, Concerto for violoncello in E minor
Bong-Ihn Koh '08, Cello
Saturday, March 3th, 2007
Junior Parents Weekend Performance
Beethoven, Overture to Egmont
Grieg, Concerto for Piano in A minor
Nora Bartosik '08, Piano
Concerto Competition Winner
Schumann, Symphony No. 2 in C major
Friday, April 27th, 2007
Saint-Saëns, Introduction and Rondo capriccioso
and
Wieniawski, Légende
Stefan Jackiw '07, Violin
Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 in A major
Final Work TBA
