Abbey Bach Festival | Bach Cantata Choir; Balourdet Quartet – Season Finale

Start: Friday, July 25, 2025 6:00PM
End: Friday, July 25, 2025 9:30PM

Situated on a hilltop in the mid-Willamette Valley, the Abbey Bach Festival is a unique opportunity to listen to world-renowned musicians while enjoying the peaceful atmosphere of Mount Angel Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded in 1882. Between evening concerts in the Abbey church and the Damian Center, enjoy a picnic buffet supper with local wines while taking in beautiful vistas from the surrounding countryside. Daily Festival Schedule 5:20pm: Vespers (optional) 6pm: Church performance 6:30pm: Picnic buffet supper 8pm: Feature performance About the Bach Cantata Choir The Bach Cantata Choir was founded in 2005 with a simple mission – to sing all of J. S. Bach’s sacred church cantatas – most of which date from Bach’s time as the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, Germany (1723-1750). The choir performs one or two cantatas at each concert – plus other Baroque and Renaissance music that may be relevant to the liturgical season (i.e. Lent, Epiphany, Easter, Advent). The choir has 45+ regular volunteer members, and employs professional section leaders, vocal soloists and a professional orchestra of 10-20 orchestra musicians for each concert. Since the demands for singing Bach are quite high, choir members typically are proficient in singing in German and often sing with some of the best choirs in the Portland Area – among them Portland Symphonic Choir and Trinity Cathedral Choir. Orchestral musicians are often members of other select ensembles, including the Vancouver Symphony and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. About the Balourdet Quartet The Balourdet Quartet stands out for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al–Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program. In 2021, the Quartet won the Grand Prize at New York’s Concert Artists Guild Competition, which included joint management by Concert Artists Guild in the U.S., and Young Classical Artist’s Trust (YCAT) in the UK and Europe. In addition, the Balourdet has been prizewinners in Canada’s Banff International String Quartet Competition, the International Premio Paolo Borciani Competition in Italy, Gold Medal winners at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Gold Medal and Audience Prizewinners at the Yellow Springs Competition. For more information and tickets, visit mountangelabbey.org/bach.