The Bach Ensemble of St. Thomas begins their eighth year with a Bach Vespers service featuring both a cantata and a motet by J. S. Bach. The prelude to the service will be his magnificent motet Singet dem Herrn nein neues Lied, BWV 225 while the service is centered around the cantata Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin, BWV 144 (Take what is thine and go), both perform by the instrumentalists and singers of the BEST in the intimate space of St. Thomas.

Singet dem Herrn is one of Bach’s most dazzling vocal works, with double chorus participating in a musical high-wire act. Cantata 144 was originally written in Leipzig for performance in 1724 and is scored for soprano, alto, and tenor soloists, choir, strings, oboes and oboe d’amore.

Highlights from the 2017-2018 season include performances of Bach’s great reformation cantata Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott in Cincinnati and Louisville, the annual Messiah Sing-Along, a cantata performance on Christmas Eve prior to St. Thomas’s Midnight Mass, Bach’s arrangement of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in March, an April collaboration with the May Festival Youth Chorus, and Bach cantatas every month of the year, September to May.

This season is again part of the BEST’s 200 in 20 Project with the goal of performing all of Bach’s sacred cantatas over the course of 20 years.