Third@First, the First United Methodist Church of Pasadena’s concert series on the third Saturday of each month, presents “Happy Birthday JSB – A Celebration of Johann Sebastian Bach,” celebrating one of history’s greatest musicians, on Saturday, March 20, 4 to 5 p.m.
The concert features a wide variety of Bach’s compositions music for voices and instruments. Included will be a selection of pieces for solo instruments as well as a scene from the Passion According to Saint John, as Holy Week approaches.
Performers at the concert will include David Garrett (cellist), Aaron Shows (organist), Cynthia Crass (mezzo-soprano), Johann Schram Reed (baritone), Eric Werner (tenor), members of the First UMC Chancel Choir, and Gregory Norton as Music Director.
Bach was born in Germany in 1685. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical formation in Lüneburg.
From 1703 through about 1720, he worked as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, and at courts in Weimar and Köthen, mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723, he was employed as Thomaskantor – director of the St. Thomas Church Boys Choir – in Leipzig. He composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university’s student ensemble Collegium Musicum.
In 1736, Bach was granted the title of court composer by Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.
As a composer and musician of the Baroque period, Bach is known for instrumental compositions such as the “Brandenburg Concertos” and the “Goldberg Variations,” and for vocal music such as “St. Matthew Passion” and “Mass in B minor.” Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.
In the last decades of his life, he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications in 1750 after eye surgery, at the age of 65.
First UMC’s Third@First concert series can be viewed online at First United Methodist church’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/
For more information, call (626) 796-0157 or visit www.thirdatfirst.org/new-
