Fans of the Oregon Bach Festival can look forward to another slate of top artists, performers and speakers with the announcement of the lineup for the 2025 event.

Staged in partnership with the School of Music and Dance at the University of Oregon, the festival is a signature event that draws some of the world’s leading musicians, choral groups, conductors and experts on the works and interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach. This year’s event will again feature world-class choral-orchestral performances, new music, lectures and community events.

Running June 27 through July 13, it features events at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, historic Beall Concert Hall on the UO campus, and local churches. The festival also travels to Mount Angel Abbey near Mount Angel, Kaul Auditorium and First United Methodist Church in Portland, and Town Hall in Seattle. 

Tickets go on sale to the public in early April, with the annual Friends of the Festival exclusive presale beginning in mid-March. More information can be found at the Oregon Bach Festival website.

Dutch conductor Jos van Veldhoven, one of the festival’s two artistic partners, opens the 2025 edition June 27 with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, the piece that catapulted Beethoven into the music world’s elite. The opening night concert also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the festival’s Berwick Academy for Historically Informed Performance. 

Van Veldhoven, who The New York Times has called “imaginative and spontaneous,” also conducts the Bach magnum opus, Mass in B Minor, on July 3.

On June 28, the festival presents the Grammy-nominated oratorio “Considering Matthew Shepard,” composed and conducted by the festival’s other artistic partner, Craig Hella Johnson. The piece is a musical response to the 1998 hate crime and murder of a gay University of Wyoming student. 

Johnson next conducts a sunset concert July 2 at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum in honor of the 500th birthday of the Renaissance “prince of music,” Giovanni Palestrina. He concludes his inaugural year of festival artistic leadership July 10 with an evening of music exploring peace and conflict, including Arvo Pärt’s “Credo” and works from Bach, Vaughan Williams, Jessie Montgomery and more.

Bach virtuoso Shunske Sato makes his Bach festival debut as the festival partners with Chamber Music Northwest to present all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos on June 29. Sato also leads this season’s edition of the iconic “Discovery” lecture-concert series July 5, when the festival examines the then-popular works performed during social gatherings of musicians in the early 1700s.

A slate of renowned guest artists return for 2025. On July 7, perennial festival favorite and Grammy-winner Paul Jacobs offers Bach’s love letter to counterpoint, “The Art of Fugue.” On July 1, Grammy-winning mezzo Fleur Barron and Chamber Music Northwest co-artistic director Gloria Chien present an evening of song and solo piano.

On July 9, the festival welcomes back violinist Rahel Rilling, daughter of Bach festival co-founder Helmuth Rilling. The younger Rilling leads a crossover performance of music ranging from Bach and Ravel to Sting and Dizzy Gillespie.

The final weekend of the festival is marked by three significant and sizable projects. July 11 features a staging of a lost Bach Passion, based on the gospel according to Saint Mark. “Markus Passion,” a festival commission and collaborative project with Concert Theatre Works, will tour the U.K. and U.S., featuring TV and film actor Joseph Marcell, who appeared in the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” television series, in the role of the narrator. Portland Baroque Orchestra artistic director Julian Perkins conducts.

Imani Winds returns to the festival July 12 with “Passion for Bach and Coltrane.” The 2024 Grammy-winning oratorio includes spoken-word poetry by A.B. Spellman.

The festival closes July 13 when the festival partners with Eugene Ballet for a performance of “Carmina Burana.” Ken-David Masur will conduct the Carl Orff masterpiece. 

The Oregon Bach Festival rounds out its schedule with performances from the Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy and Organ Institute, a vocal concert from a collection of international soloists, and a Family Series presentation of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite. 

Additional artists and events will be announced in the coming weeks.