Bach Festival Volunteers, Music Director, Chorus, Guest
Artists and Board Members hard at work
The Bach Festival of Central Florida at 32 years
Celebrating Our Performing History (1974-2006)
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The
millennium season of the Bach Festival of Central Florida
marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Bach's
death and celebrating twenty-five years of Festival
concerts is well past us as we race into the 21st century
and progress into our 32nd season.
The Bach Festival of Central Florida was first conceived in
the fall of 1973 when Moody Chisholm, former conductor of
the Ridge Oratorio Society, and Virginia Davidson, then
Professor of Music at Polk Community College, joined forces
to organize the Bach Festival of Central Florida. The first
Bach Festival concert was presented on January 2, 1974, at
First Presbyterian Church in Winter Haven. The Festival's
Articles of Incorporation were prepared and filed by Dr.
Martin Galstad. No programs were presented in 1975,
and the first concerts sponsored by the newly incorporated
organization were presented on October 2-3, 1976. Since
then there have been festivals each year.
In the words of the founders of the Bach Festival, the
purpose of the new organization was "to promote the works
of Bach and his contemporaries through performance." A
phenomenally gifted musician, Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750) was the most influential composer of the
Baroque era, a particularly rich era in the history of
Western music. The son of a composer and the father of
composers, Bach was proficient on several instruments and a
virtuoso on the organ as well as one of the most prolific
and versatile composers in the history of music. To master
the ability to compose a single melodic line with
accompaniment is an impressive enough achievement, but Bach
has been the envy of other musicians for his effortless
mastery and staggering command of the intricate and
demanding art of counterpoint, the combination of multiple
melodic lines unfolding simultaneously yet independently.
Beethoven once exclaimed in admiration of his predecessor,
"Er ist kein Bach, er ist ein Meer." ("He is no brook, he
is a sea.") Standing at a crossroads in music history, Bach
was the heir to a centuries-old tradition of writing
polyphony or counterpoint that dated back to the early
Renaissance. He enthusiastically adapted the principles of
contrapuntal writing to a dynamic new harmonic style that
European composers would exploit for the next two
centuries.
Through the annual concerts of the Bach Festival, Bach has
been placed in a broad historical context. Over the past
quarter century the Bach Festival has sponsored programs
featuring not only Bach's music, but works of earlier
Baroque composers, including Monteverdi, Frescobaldi,
Purcell, Pachelbel, and Buxtehude. Past performances also
included music of Bach's contemporaries, including Handel
and Pergolesi; music by Bach's sons, several of whom were
noted composers in their own right; and music by later
composers inspired or influenced by Bach, including Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
Over the years, a number of Music Directors have worked
tirelessly to organize the Festival's activities and plan
programs. During the first five years of the Festival, Mr.
Chisholm and Dr. Davidson served as Music Directors. In
1979, they were succeeded by Dr. Bennett Penn, Assistant
Professor of Music at Florida Southern College and director
of the Lakeland Choral Society. Dr. Penn served as Music
Director for twelve years. In 1992 Penn was succeeded by
Robert Custer, Coordinator of Musical Arts at Polk
Community College. Mr. Custer served as Music Director for
5 years. The next Music Director was Andrew Walker, who
assumed the position in the fall of 1996. Mr. Walker was
also Music Director of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in
Orlando. The accomplished Mr. Walker received his Bachelor
of Music degree with honors from Royal Holloway College of
the University of London, England, and had considerable
experience as organist and choir director in both Great
Britain and the United States.
Our present Music Director is Dr. Gabriel Statom.
Dr. Statom received the Bachelor of Music Education degree
with voice and piano emphasis from The University of
Mississippi, the Master of Music degree in Choral
Conducting with organ as the principal instrument from
Florida State University and a Doctor of Worship Studies
degree from the Institute for Worship Studies, affiliated
with Wheaton College and Northern Theological Seminary,
both in Chicago, Illinois. For more on Dr. Statom click on
our
Music Director link.