Yale Hosts Benefit Performance of Bach Mass to Aid Japan Relief Effort

There will be a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “B-Minor Mass” by the renowned Bach Collegium Japan on Saturday, March 26, to benefit Yale’s relief efforts for survivors of the earthquake in Japan.

Conducted by the founder of the Collegium, Masaaki Suzuki, the performance will take place at 8 p.m. at Woolsey Hall, corner of Grove and College streets. Tickets are $15; $8 for students. Tickets can be ordered by calling 203-432-4158 or online at the Yale School of Music website; they will also be sold the night of the performance.

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music is presenting this concert to benefit those whose lives have been affected by the earthquake and related events in Japan. All proceeds from ticket sales and donations received at the performance will be forwarded by Yale to the Red Cross-Japan Earthquake. Donations by credit card may also be made online at http://relief.yale.edu/, where there is more information about Yale’s relief efforts.

Markus Rathey, a Bach scholar and associate professor of music history at Yale, will give a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. in the Presidents Room on the second floor of Woolsey Hall.

Suzuki founded Bach Collegium Japan in 1990 with the aim of introducing Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the Baroque period. The group consists of both a chorus and a baroque orchestra, and its major activities include an annual concert series of Bach’s cantatas and a number of instrumental programs.

Since 1995, Bach Collegium Japan has earned an international reputation as one of the most exceptional ensembles of its kind in the world, both through its recordings of Bach Church Cantatas for the BIS label and through world concert tours that include appearances throughout Europe and at major festivals in Edinburgh, Santiago de Compostela, Tel Aviv, Leipzig and Melbourne.

Maestro Suzuki is visiting professor of choral conducting and conductor of the Yale Schola Cantorum at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale School of Music. The March 26 performance of Bach’s “Mass in B-Minor” at Woolsey is part of a month-long tour of North America by Bach Collegium Japan. In April, Suzuki will return to conduct the Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415 in performances of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” in New Haven, New York, and on tour in Italy.

Click here to listen to an excerpt of Bach’s “St. John Passion” performed by Bach Collegium Japan.