Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained the ensemble’s music director ever since, touring regularly in major venues and festivals throughout Europe and the United States. His extensive discography on the BIS label, featuring all Bach’s major choral works as well as complete works for harpsichord, has been widely praised.

In addition to working with renowned period ensembles, such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Baroque, Mr. Suzuki conducts repertoire as diverse as Brahms, Britten, Fauré, Mahler, Mendelssohn, and Stravinsky, with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Gothenburg Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, and NHK Symphony. He made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony in February 2016.

Mr. Suzuki combines his conducting career with work as an organist and harpsichordist. Born in Kobe, he graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition and organ performance and then studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam under Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. Founder and professor emeritus of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Mr. Suzuki was on the choral conducting faculty at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music from 2009 until 2013 and remains affiliated as the principal guest conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum.

(11/2022)
 

Soprano Sherezade Panthaki’s 2017-18 season features performances of Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and the Saint Louis Symphony; appearances with the Milwaukee Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Ars Lyrica, Pasadena Symphony, and the Orlando Philharmonic; and a United States Christmas Oratorio tour with Bach Collegium Japan. This performance marks her debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices.

Highlights of her past seasons include Messiah with Bach Collegium Japan, the National Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, and the Nashville and San Antonio symphonies; Bach cantatas and oratorios and works by Handel and Purcell with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; Handel’s Saul with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; Belinda in Dido and Aeneas and Galatea in Acis and Galatea with the Mark Morris Dance Group; Solomon with the Radio Kamer Filharmonie; Handel at Carnegie Hall with William Christie; appearances at the Oregon Bach Festival and Berkeley Early Music Festival; Orff’s Carmina burana with the Houston Symphony; Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestra of Saint Luke’s; Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Requiem with the Washington Bach Consort; and Saint John Passion, Saint Matthew Passion, and Brahms’s A German Requiem with Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue.

Ms. Panthaki holds an artist diploma from the Yale School of Music and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois. 

(November 2017)

American countertenor Jay Carter’s recent appearances include Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion with the American Bach Soloists and the Choir of Saint Thomas Church, Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Handel’s Saul with Musica Vocale and the Kansas City Baroque Consortium, Handel’s Jeptha with Ars Lyrica, and the North American premiere of John Tavener’s Lament for Jerusalem with the Choral Arts Society of Washington. In addition to his performances of music of the Baroque, Mr. Carter has premiered works by John Tavener, Augusta Read Thomas, Chester Alwes, and Anthony Maglione. Highlights of the 2017 season include appearances throughout North America with Maasaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan, the Portland Baroque Festival, and the Saint Louis Symphony in Vivaldi’s Gloria and opera arias.

Mr. Carter received a master’s in music from the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music where he was a pupil of Simon Carrington, Judith Malafronte, and James Taylor. He received his undergraduate degree from William Jewell College where he studied voice with Arnold Epley. He currently lives in Liberty, MI with his family, and serves as Artist-in-Residence at William Jewell College. As a researcher and clinician, Mr. Carter frequently presents masterclasses and lecture recitals for colleges, universities, and presenting organizations throughout the United States. This performance marks his debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices.

(November 2017)

American tenor Zachary Wilder studied at the Eastman School of Music, the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, and then as a Tanglewood Music Fellow.

Season highlights for 2017-18 include the continuation of the Monteverdi450 tour with the English Baroque Soloists in Berlin, Wrocław, Paris, Chicago, and New York; Osman in Handel's Almira with the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel's Messiah and Bach's Saint John Passion with the American Bach Soloists, Handel's Dixit Dominus and Hayes's Fall of Jericho with Netherlands Baroque, Draghi's El Prometeo at Opera Dijon, and three tours with Bach Collegium Japan in the United States, Japan, and Europe, performing Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Saint John Passion and Mozart's Mass in C minor. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in December 2016, singing Handel’s Messiah.

Mr. Wilder can be heard with Boston Early Music Festival on their Grammy award-winning recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers, and in recordings with Les Arts Florissants, Ensemble Clematis, Arion Baroque, Ensemble Pygmalion, Le Concert Spirituel, Cappella Mediterranea, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and Les Talens Lyriques. 2017-18 will see the release of a DVD of Monteverdi's Orfeo with Les Arts Florissants, a CD of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria with the English Baroque Soloists, and his solo album of seventeenth century Venetian chamber music with lutenist Josep María Martí Duran. 

(November 2017)

Dominik Wörner studied church music, musicology, harpsichord, organ, and singing at the conservatories in Stuttgart, Fribourg, and Berne, notably with Jakob Stämpfli. In 2002, he won first prize in the vocal section of the International Bach Competition and a special prize from the Leipzig Baroque Orchestra. He furthered his studies with a master class in song interpretation given by Irwin Gage in Zürich.

Highlights of Mr. Wörner’s recent seasons include Mendelssohn’s Saint Paul with Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart; a European tour with Collegium Vocale Gent and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra; a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Latvian State Choir in Tallinn; and Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, and a performance of Bach’s secular cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan in Tokyo. Among his upcoming performances are Bach’s Saint John Passion in Spain, Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle in Estonia, Brahms’s A German Requiem in Zurich’s Tonhalle, and Saint Paul in Japan. This performance marks his debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices.

Mr. Wörner has released recordings of Winterreise and Schwanengesang with fortepiano accompaniment on the ARS label. He is the artistic director of the German-Japanese Lied Society in Tokyo, co-founder of the Sette Voci ensemble, and founder and artistic director of Kirchheimer Konzertwinter, a concert series in his home region of Pfalz, Germany.

(November 2017)

Bach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki with the aim of introducing Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the Baroque period. Comprised of both Baroque orchestra and chorus, their activities include an annual concert series of Bach’s cantatas and a number of instrumental programs.  

Bach Collegium Japan records for BIS. 2014 saw the conclusion of their recorded cycle of J.S. Bach’s complete church cantatas, a project comprising more than fifty CDs, initiated in 1995. This achievement was recognized with a 2014 ECHO Klassik Editorial Achievement of the Year award. Their recording of Bach motets was honored with a German Record Critics’ Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2010, and a BBC Music Magazine Award. Their recording of Mozart’s Mass in C minor was named as Recording of the Month by BBC Music Magazine in January 2017. The disc follows their first recording of Mozart—the Requiem—released in 2015.

Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki have shared their interpretations across the international music scene with performances in venues as far afield as Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York, and Seoul, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New Zealand International Arts Festival, Ghent’s Festival of Flanders, and Festival Cervantino in Mexico. This performance marks the ensemble’s debut on the San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers Series.

In 2010 the ensemble celebrated its 20th anniversary with a series of special concerts in Tokyo. In 2013 they were invited to appear at New York’s Lincoln Center where Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan Choir collaborated with the New York Philharmonic to open its Bach Variations Festival. The 2013-14 season saw the ensemble debut in the Czech Republic at the Prague Spring Festival and in Mexico. A sold-out tour in fall 2015 marked their fifth visit to North America.

This season’s highlights include a return to North America performing at Yale University, Lincoln Center, University Musical Society, and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County; performances in Europe at the Thüringer Bachwochen and Leipzig Bachfest; a tour to Gronigen, Amsterdam, and Paris; and their debut in Switzerland at the Fribourg International Music Festival.

Bach Collegium Japan’s US tour is supported by Bunkacho, The Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal year 2017.

 

(November 2017)