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For Release 3/19/15
Contact: April Libman
Director of Marketing
541-346-5667
[email protected]
OBF Announces Five Year Extension of Matthew Halls’ Contract
And 2015 Season Line Up
Eugene, Oregon – The Oregon Bach Festival announced today that Artistic Director and Conductor Matthew
Halls and The University of Oregon have agreed to extend Halls’ contract through 2020: Oregon Bach
Festival’s 50th anniversary year. Halls won both local audience support and critical acclaim for his dynamic
performance style and artistic interpretations during the 2014 Festival with a reconstruction of Bach’s St.
Mark Passion, Monteverdi’s Vespers, Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil and Verdi’s Requiem. Maestro Halls has
also evidenced a strong commitment to education and working with young musicians. He recently initiated
and will lead the training and performance aspects of the new Berwick Academy program, as well as
continuing his work with OBF’s conducting master class students. Matthew Halls is currently in high
international demand having recently conducted programs for the National Symphony, Philadelphia
Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and Salzburg Mozarteum Orchester. With his renewed commitment to
Oregon Bach Festival, the event is poised to continue offering artistic excellence in performance, intensive
educational opportunities and community programs for years to come.
Matthew Halls’ commitment and vision is apparent in this year’s Festival, June 25 – July 12, which is jampacked with masterworks by classical music’s greatest composers, inaugural performances of the Berwick
Academy for Historically Informed Performance, popular guest artist appearances, a ground-breaking
collaboration with Chamber Music Northwest, and more free community events than ever before. The
University of Oregon event features cornerstone choral orchestral works including Haydn’s Creation and
Lord Nelson Mass, Pärt’s Passio, Bach’s St John Passion, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Vocal soloists include
soprano Nicole Cabell, soprano Tamara Wilson, and tenor Nicholas Phan.
New in 2015, the OBF Berwick Academy supports the growth of historically informed performance in the
United States, offering top-tier professional development to early music musicians in their 20’s and early
30’s, and providing coaching, rehearsals, concerts and touring opportunities. Open by national audition, the
Academy was founded through a generous gift from UO Alumni and OBF patrons, Andrew and Phyllis
Berwick. This year the members of the Berwick Academy will perform two concerts in Eugene and two in
collaboration with Chamber Music Northwest in Portland. Also part of this collaborative exchange, OBF will
present two Chamber Music Northwest programs in Eugene: a trio of Beethoven sonatas played by
renowned violinist Ida Kavafian and the legendary Peter Serkin, and a world premiere by American
composer Kenji Bunch titled Ralph’s Old Records. This is the first time that Chamber Music Northwest and the
Oregon Bach Festival have worked together to present each other’s programs in their respective markets.
Guest artists in 2015 include the world renowned authority on Bach, Masaaki Suzuki; vocal superstar and
American renaissance woman Storm Large performing with Hudson Shad and the OBF Orchestra conducted
by Robert Moody, Canadian Brass, virtuoso organist Paul Jacobs, legendary violinist Monica Huggett, pianist
Ya-Fei Chuang, international harmonica sensation Joe Powers and local children’s artist Cullen Vance. Guest
conductors feature Grammy Award winners OBF Director Emeritus, Helmuth Rilling and Craig Hella Johnson.
Oregon Bach Festival’s flagship Discovery lecture series focuses on the first three parts of J.S. Bach’s
Christmas Oratorio, as well as the composer’s St. John Passion. Master teachers include Matthew Halls,
Helmuth Rilling and Edward Maclary.
In 2015 OBF invites the public to see more free community events than ever before, with sixteen
performances open to all. On the House concerts at the Hult Center include the Estonian TV Girls’ Choir and
Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy soloists presented by OBF and picfest choirs Hail Mary the Queen
Children’s Choir from the Philippines and Florida’s Singing Sons Boy Choir. In addition to these programs are
other non-ticketed events like Inside Line pre-show lectures, Let’s Talk open discussions with festival guests,
the Organ Institute Showcase concert, Organ Interludes performed at local churches and the Conductors
Showcase held in Soreng Theater.
A full festival schedule is attached.
Advance tickets go on sale beginning March 20, 2015. Tickets are available to the general public on May 5th,
2015.
More information is available on line at www.oregonbachfestival.com.
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The Oregon Bach Festival, a landmark program of The University of Oregon, has presented the masterworks of J.S. Bach
to audiences in Eugene, Portland, and throughout the State of Oregon for more than four decades. The annual event
began as a modest collaboration between German Conductor and Organist, Helmuth Rilling and once Associate Dean of
the University of Oregon School of Music, Royce Saltzman. The OBF is now an international festival of worldwide repute,
led by Maestro Matthew Halls (Artistic Director and conductor). In additional to traditional choral-orchestral
masterworks, the festival also presents internationally renowned guest artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Pink Martini
and Joshua Bell; offers educational programs; children’s and family programs; and, free community programs. Writers
from The Times of London, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal have praised the Festival for its
“pioneering approach to programming”, describing it as “virtually without equal in America” and “one of the world’s
leading music festivals.” The Festival is supported through public and private grants from the National Endowment for
the Arts, Hinkle Charitable Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, the Paul G. Allen Family
Foundation, the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation; and both the Silva Endowment and the Nils and Jewel Hult
Endowment of the Arts Foundation of Western Oregon through the Oregon Community Foundation, and substantially
from corporate sector, including American Airlines, Bigfoot/Pepsi-Cola, KeyBank, Umpqua Bank, US Bank, Valley River
Inn, and Wildish Companies.