Spirituals, other American music bring Bach choir back
ORLANDO SENTINEL ARTS WRITER | APR 26, 2021 AT 5:01 AM
American folk songs and spirituals will ring out from the stage of the Dr. Phillips Center’s Frontyard Festival in a program that reunites the famed Bach Festival Choir for its first in-person performance in more than a year.
“The last year has been hard on us,” said Jeff Nagle, a choir member for 13 years. “It’s not as much fun to sing at home.”
The choir and Bach Festival Orchestra will be joined by soloists Meredith Woodend and Kevin Deas.
For Deas, it’s a return to live performance and a return to musical roots in more ways than one.
“They were one of the earliest presenters hiring me,” he says of the Bach Festival, with whom he has been a guest artist for “a couple of decades. It’s like family.”
The program, too, examines the musical roots of the nation. On the bill are such beloved songs as “Shenandoah,” “Ride the Chariot,” “Amazing Grace” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”