The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → Pasadena Presbyterian Church’s Good Friday concert features Bach’s “Passion according to St. John” on April 18
Monrovia Weekly Apr 03, 2014
by
share with
PASADENA, March 28, 2014 — Pasadena Presbyterian Church’s 17th annual Good Friday Devotional Concert will feature a performance of J.S. Bach’s “Passion According to St. John” on Friday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the church’s sanctuary at 585 E. Colorado Blvd. (corner of Madison Ave.) in the Playhouse District of downtown Pasadena.
Timothy Howard will conduct the Kirk Choir with community singers; the Pasadena Singers; soloists including Jonathan Mack as the Evangelist; and the Friends of Music Orchestra playing on period instruments in the Baroque style. The work will be sung in German with projected English, Korean and Spanish translations.
As are all programs on the church’s Friends of Music at PPC series, the concert is free (a freewill offering will be taken). Free parking is available and the Sanctuary is handicap-accessible.
Bach’s “Passion According to St. John” — now considered one of the monuments of choral literature — was written in 1724 shortly after Bach came to Leipzig where he was responsible for music at St. Thomas Church and St. Nicholas Church, as well as for the city itself. Bach originally intended the dramatic work for performance in St. Thomas; however, following a decision by the town’s music council, the piece was first performed at the Good Friday Vespers service in St. Nicolas on April 7, 1724.
Although the “St. John Passion” predates the more familiar “St. Matthew Passion” by five years, it may not have been Bach’s first attempt at fashioning a dramatic oratorio on the theme of the day that Christ died. Fragments of a “St. Mark Passion” have been reconstructed and it’s possible that Bach worked on a “Passion” while he was serving in Weimar during the years 1708–1714.
In the PPC performance, some of the choruses will be sung by the church’s 50-voice Kirk Choir, augmented by 20 community singers. Other ensemble pieces will be sung by the Pasadena Singers, an auditioned group of 20 that is part of the church’s large, multifaceted music program.
In addition to Jonathan Mack singing the role of the Evangelist (the story’s narrator), other soloists are Yoav Paskowitz as Jesus, Michal Dawson Connor as Pilate, Sharon Beckwith as Mary, Dave Boucher as Peter, and Ray Quiett as the Servant.
The Kirk Choir quartet — Judith Siirila, soprano; Adrian Estabrook Mora, mezzo soprano; Micheal Lee Smith, tenor; and Michal Dawson Connor, bass-baritone — will sing the work’s arias.
