THE VOCAL RECORD COLLECTORS' SOCIETY

PRESENTS


THE BACH ARIA GROUP
A SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
PART THREE
(A 95TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR WILLIAM H. SCHEIDE


By
TERI NOEL TOWE AND SETH B. WINNER


In September, 2006, the VRCS presented one of the most memorable programs in its entire history, this devoted to the story and private recordings of the now-legendary Bach Aria Group. At the time, we dared hope for a sequel and this came to pass in November, 2007. Now, even more happily, our 2009 opening program will be devoted to a third exhibition of this wonderful and pioneering undertaking, which commenced in 1946 and maintained unparalleled excellence in its field for the next thirty-four years under the aegis of its founder, William H. Scheide.

As in our previous programs, the evening will be hosted by Teri Noel Towe and Seth B. Winner, who are now in the fifteenth year of working on the conservation and preservation of the extraordinary run of private recordings of The Bach Aria Group's concerts that Mr. Scheide commissioned, and they will present another series of highlights from this remarkable archive of concert recordings of the vocal music of Johann Sebastian Bach. These recordings, which have been transferred from pressed records, lacquers, and audiotapes, document the artistry of an astonishing number of great singers, including a number of guest artists who never sang Bach except on those occasions. Artists to be heard in our January program will include Marian Anderson, William Warfield, Roberta Peters, Eleanor Steber, Jan Peerce, Helen Watts, Maureen Forrester, Mack Harrell, Lorna Haywood, Benita Valente, Lois Marshall (as a contralto), Norman Farrow and Seth McCoy. (Although several of these artists were heard in our two prior programs, there will be no duplication of material.)

Our first Bach Aria Group program ended, quite memorably, with reminiscences by William H. Scheide, and while we do not expect Mr. Scheide to be in attendance at our upcoming program, that program will be dedicated to him in honor of his 95th birthday, which takes place on January 6, 2009. Also dedicated to him will be a special concert presented at Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, N.J. on Friday, Jaunaury 23, 2009 at 8PM. For tickets and information, go to www.ScheideConcerts.com, or to Richardson Auditorium at http://www.princeton.edu/richaud/toinfo.shtml (609-258-5000).

Teri Noel Towe has distinguished himself in Law, Art History, Radio Broadcasting (some twenty-five years of it, twelve of them spent as WBAI-FM's pseudonymous ÒLaughing CavalierÓ), Horticulture, Record Production, Music Criticism, Annotation, etc., but for our purposes, perhaps most of all in the field of Baroque Music, with special emphasis on J.S. Bach. He has twice won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for distinguished writing on music, and he has lectured at Leipzig's Hochschule fur Musik Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, annually from 1983 through 1998 at Nassau County's Bach Aria Festival, and also at California's Carmel Bach Festival, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Wayne State University, Harvard University, Princeton University, etc., etc. Please feel free to visit the following sites: 1) http://www.npj.com/homepage/teritowe/jsbpdm00.html. 2) http://www.npj.com/homepage/teritowe/hrp.html. 3) http://www.npj.com/thefaceofbach, and 4) http://www.npj.com/homepage/teritowe/jsbbwv7.html. to learn more about this True Renaissance Man. There is probably no one alive more qualified to speak on performance practices of the Baroque period than Teri Noel Towe!

We all know Seth B. Winner best as sound engineer for all VRCS monthly programs, creator of our monthly auction lists, engineer and coordinator for our annual CD, and as a longstanding member of our Board of Directors. Outside the VRCS, however, Seth is one of the world's most eminent sound restoration experts, founder of Seth B. Winner Sound Studios, engineer for a huge number of commercial CD reissues, more than once a Grammy Awards nominee (remember the ten-CD New York Philharmonic set?), and longtime sound engineer overseeing the preservation of The Toscanini Legacy at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives, while doing similar work on The Jan Peerce Archives. Also, he has been engineer for the Metropolitan Opera Historic Broadcast segments heard during the Met broadcast season and continues to engineer the Metropolitan Opera Historic Broadcast reissues, and is, along with Dan Hladik, co-engineer of the Metropolitan Opera Guild's commercial CD issues. And, of course, as stated above, he is working with Teri Noel Towe on the conservation and preservation of the Bach Aria Group archives of private recordings and concerts. As with Mr. Towe's expertise in Baroque performance practice, there is probably no sound engineer on the planet more capable of bringing out the best in these Bach treasures than Seth B. Winner!


DATE: FRIDAY, January 6, 2009
TIME: 7:30P.M. SHARP
PLACE: CHRIST CHURCH BASEMENT AUDITORIUM
PARK AVE. & 60TH STREET
N. Y. C.


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