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Community Corner

41st annual Bach Week Festival: Candlelight concert with guitarist Adam Levin

Award-winning young Boston-based guitarist and Naxos recording artist Adam Levin, who was raised in north suburban Lake Bluff, Ill., will present a solo Candlelight Concert titled “Bach, Variations, and Witches" in the Nichols Hall lobby.

Levin’s program will include late Renaissance composer Girolamo Frescobaldi’s “Aria Con Variazioni detta la Frescobalda”; J. S. Bach’s Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004; and two 21st-century works: Ricardo Llorca’s Baroque-inspired “Handeliana,” consisting of variations on a theme by G. F. Handel; and Eduardo Morales-Caso’s Suite “Il Sogno Delle Streghe” (Witches’ Dream).

"With these works we hear the compositional lineage from Frescobaldi to Bach and then we leap into the future," Levin says. The recital "spans a large period of history and rich and diverse compositional languages."

He says the "extremely lyrical" Frescobaldi piece was originally written for harpsichord and "later masterfully transcribed by Andrés Segovia in the key of E minor for solo guitar." The Bach Chaconne "demands a thorough technical command of the guitar and an even more assiduous study of the piece to respect Bach’s intentions and give a convincing performance."

Levin commissioned Llorca to write "Handeliana" for him in 2011, one of 30 new works Levin commissioned during his residency in Spain as a Fulbright Scholar.

Morales-Caso's contemporary work is a "stark contrast to the music performed earlier in the program and thematically places the heavenly and divinely inspired works by Frescobaldi, Bach and Llorca alongside a more brutish and witch-inspired piece."

Tickets and Information

Tickets for the Candlelight Concert are $20.  Tickets are available at www.bachweek.org or by calling 800-838-3006.

Bach Week is one of the Midwest’s premiere Baroque music festivals. The event enlists musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, and other top-tier ensembles, while featuring some of the Chicago area’s finest instrumental and vocal soloists and distinguished guest artists from out of town.

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