Oregon Bach Festival tickets now on sale

The annual Oregon Bach Festival promises to be especially memorable this year, with a “passing of the baton” among conductors.

The 2013 event June 24-July 14 celebrates Helmuth Rilling’s 80th birthday and honors his 44th and concluding season as artistic director.

Matthew Halls, who will succeed Rilling as artistic director immediately following the Festival, conducts a "Night at the Opera" July 2 and shares the podium with Rilling in a "Passing of the Baton" July 6, both in Eugene’s 2,430-seat Silva Concert Hall.

In all, the University of Oregon event will produce 31 concerts with more than 50 overall events including lectures, films and gatherings.

Rilling, who turns 80 on May 29, conducts Beethoven’s monumental Missa Solemnis as the opening concert, Bach’s St John Passion in four lecture-demonstrations and a full concert and Bach’s B Minor Mass in Portland and Eugene as the Festival finale.

Among the guest artists are violinists Midori and Chee-Yun, pianist/conductor Jeffrey Kahane, the Chuang/Levin piano duo, L.A-based baroque group Bach’s Circle, the Hohenstaufen Quartet (which includes Rilling’s daughters Rahel and Sara), the Czech duo Radim Zenkl and Leo Chern, and soprano Tamara Wilson.

Halls also serves as harpsichord soloist in a four-city, all-Bach tour with period-music specialist Monica Huggett and the Portland Baroque Orchestra.

Tickets are available online, over the counter, and by phone through all ticket outlets and event box offices. 

Full ticket information is online at http://oregonbachfestival.com/tickets. For more information, contact George Evano, director of communications, at 541-346-5667 or link to the OBF online brochure at http://read.uberflip.com/i/114603.

- from the Oregon Bach Festival