BACH AS CONNECTION
COMMUNAL MUSIC MAKING
with Kate Sheeran
former executive director, Kaufman Music Center
Dean, Eastman School of Music
What if Bach was never intimidating — just music? Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan sits down with Kate Sheeran, Executive Director of New York City's Kaufman Music Center and incoming Dean of the Eastman School of Music, for a wide-ranging conversation about the power of communal music-making, what music education can look like when barriers are removed, and how Bach became the unlikely soundtrack of a teenager's summer camp experience.
Kate traces her relationship with Bach from singing chorales at Kin Haven music camp as a teenager — not knowing they came from cantatas and passions, just knowing they sounded beautiful — to leading one of New York City's most extraordinary music institutions, where over 2,500 students study each year, including one of only 14 high school baroque orchestras in the United States. Their conversation touches on the difference between music being "performed by everyone" versus "for everyone," the way music education develops leadership and collaboration, and why Bach, of all composers, might be the best model for the 21st-century musician.
This episode also features a performance of the tenor aria from Cantata 157, Ich lasse dich nicht — described by Nick as perhaps the most difficult tenor aria Bach ever wrote, spare in orchestration and relentless in its upward reach, depicting a soul grasping desperately for comfort.
Full episode details and credits: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/episodes/ep9
This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS.
To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE
donation to support the continuation of this project please visit:
https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects
