The Berkshire Bach Society announces 36th season with concerts of Baroque music and more in the Berkshires, Pioneer Valley, and Capital Region
Great Barrington, July 9, 2025 – The Berkshire Bach Society (BBS) announces its 36th season with concerts of Baroque music and more in the Berkshires, Pioneer Valley, and Capital Region. The lineup includes solo, orchestral, and choral programs played by some of today’s finest musicians, as well as films and presentations that explore creativity and how J.S. Bach has inspired artists through the centuries. Artistic Director Eugene Drucker hosts conversations with special guests and provides an opportunity to experience Baroque music in new ways.
“The Berkshire Bach Society’s 36th Season has a little something for everyone,” said Terrill McDade, Executive Director of the Berkshire Bach Society. “This year we reprise the six ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos for Bach at New Year’s in a tribute to our late chairman, Adrian van Zon, who did more than anyone else to establish the series as a core Berkshire Bach tradition. And we launch the first of what will become a biennial series of major Baroque choral works, beginning with Bach’s great St. John Passion that was postponed from last season because of unexpected logistical issues. In between, we celebrate the great Baroque keyboard tradition and present four fascinating events and conversations in our BBS Portals series--all part of our mission to entertain and educate, as we preserve the legacy of Baroque music, especially that of J. S. Bach, played by superb musicians.”
As prologue to the regular season, BBS presents The Members Concert with the Young Artists of the Manchester Music Festival (MMF) on Friday, July 18, 6pm, at the New Marlborough Meeting House on the village green. The program puts the young artists through their paces with selections from Bach’s Art of Fugue and as a special treat for listeners, the Artistic Director of MMF and (with Eugene Drucker) co-founder of the Emerson String Quartet), Philip Setzer, joins the ensemble in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20. The event is FREE.
On August 16-17, Berkshire Bach collaborates with the Tanglewood Learning Institute to provide the period instrument ensemble for Nicholas Phan, BACH 52, Parts I & II at Studio E, at the Linde Center for Music and Learning at Tanglewood. The programs are based on Nicholas Phan’s innovative BACH 52 web series, and explore the question: “Is the music of Bach for everyone?” Tenor arias from Johann Sebastian Bach’s church cantatas are paired with interviews with various guests probing this question and examining the relevance of Bach’s music to today’s increasingly secular and diverse society. BBS Artistic Director Eugene Drucker and BBS Baroque violinist Laura Lutzke join the Meet the Makers panel on August 15, 4pm, to discuss period performance practice issues and more with Nicholas Phan.
The regular season opens with a Harpsichord Festival of two recitals by two of the world’s leading harpsichordists.
On Saturday, September 20, 3pm, Professor of Chamber Music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris Kenneth Weiss plays Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, a work of remarkable variety rarely heard in its entirety.
On October 25, 3pm, Peter Sykes, principal instructor of harpsichord and a core faculty member at the Historical Performance Department of the Juilliard School in New York City, plays a program of Baroque masterpieces that highlight different composers, styles, and traditions.
The season continues on Saturday, November 29, 4 pm, with the popular FREE community Messiah Sing-Along. The audience becomes the chorus, accompanied by The Berkshire Bach Players, in favorite choruses from Handel’s oratorio Messiah at the First Congregational Church in Great Barrington, sponsored by the Local Cultural Councils of Alford-Egremont, Lenox, New Marlborough, Sheffield, and Stockbridge.
In December Eugene Drucker leads the full Berkshire Bach Ensemble in Bach at New Year’s—The Six ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos, a celebration of Baroque Music that is part of a joyous Berkshires holiday tradition since 1993. Tuesday, December 30, Wednesday, December 31, and Thursday, January 1, at the Academy of Music in Northampton, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, and the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy (NY). Tickets on sale in September.
In February and May 2026, The Berkshire Bach Organ Masters returns to showcase two of the area’s historic organs played by two consummate organists. On Saturday, February 7, 2pm, Renée Anne Louprette kicks off the series with a program suited to the delicate voice of the Johnson Organ at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House in Housatonic. On Saturday, May 2, 3pm, Peter Sykes rouses the power of the great Roosevelt Organ at the First Congregational Church in Great Barrington. The Organ Masters spans Baroque to 21st-century repertoire and gives audiences the opportunity to hear the beautiful voices of two special instruments that are true cultural treasures in works by composers writing in an unbroken tradition.
On April 11 and 12, 3pm, BBS choral director James Bagwell leads soloists, chorus, and orchestra in two performances of the dramatic St. John Passion, Bach’s earliest surviving work in the genre and predecessor to his powerful St. Matthew Passion. These are the first performances of St. John Passion by Berkshire Bach since 1995 and promise to be major choral events. The venue for April 11 will be announced soon. The venue for April 12 is the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (Troy, NY).
The concert season concludes in May and June with the new series, BBS Musik vor Bach—The Early Music Festival that presents musicians playing period instruments in early Baroque music from across Europe and the New world. Final details of the series will be announced soon.
In addition to concerts, The Society announces Season-2 of Berkshire Bach Portals—Films, Books, and Talks about Bach, with four programs that consider the impact Bach had on creative artists in his own time and later generations.
On September 13, 3pm, at Saint James Place, Great Barrington, BBS Portals presents Bruce Adolphe, star of ‘Piano Puzzlers’ and Resident Lecturer and Director of Family Concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in Systems, Symmetry, and Mystery in the music of J.S. Bach, an entertaining and thought-provoking program that enriches the way we hear Bach’s music. Artistic Director Eugene Drucker hosts a conversation after the presentation.
On November 8, 3pm, Berkshire Bach collaborates with the Tanglewood Learning Institute to present the film Bach & Friends at Tanglewood’s Studio E, the Linde Center for Music and Learning. The film features interviews with musical all-stars from across the artistic spectrum. Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and BBS Artistic Director and violinist Eugene Drucker introduce the film with a live performance and share thoughts about their own journeys with Bach’s music in conversation after the screening.
On January 24, 2026, 3pm, at the Lenox Town Hall, BBS Portals presents Why Bach Matters, a fun and insightful multi-media program by music historian George Stauffer that runs the musical gamut from Baroque to modern rock and everything in between. Eugene Drucker plays live and hosts a conversation following the presentation.
Concluding the BBS Portals season on March 21, 3pm, Berkshire Bach collaborates with the Tanglewood Learning Institute to present the film In the Key of Bach at Tanglewood’s Studio E, the Linde Center for Music and Learning. The film is a fascinating biopic that brings the personality and character of J.S. Bach vividly to life. Eugene Drucker hosts a conversation with filmmaker Hilan Warshaw after the film. It’s Bach’s birthday —come celebrate!