Our 2025-2026 Season
Oct 3-5, 2025
CORI SPEZZATI
Dec 5-7, 2025
LAUDATE COELI
Feb 27-Mar 1
ON LEAVING
May 1-3, 2026
DER SCHWANENGESANG
As we welcome our new artistic director Nate Widelitz and begin an exciting new chapter in our history, California Bach Society’s 55th season will immerse our audiences in four magical sound worlds. Experience the architectural grandeur of Renaissance polychoral traditions along with masterworks and hidden treasures of the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras, as we celebrate the power of music to uplift the spirit, comfort the soul, and connect us across time and space.
Please note our concert start times of 7:30pm for Friday and Saturday evenings.
Oct 3–5
Cori Spezzati
The Spatial Art of Split-Choir Sound
Friday, October 3, 2025, 7:30pm
— St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, October 4, 2025, 7:30pm
— First Congregational Church, 1985 Louis Rd, Palo Alto
Sunday, October 5, 2025, 4pm
— St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft, Berkeley
A tribute to the grand choral traditions of Renaissance Venice, this program celebrates the striking antiphonal style known as cori spezzati—music written for split-choir ensembles in conversation. Voices and instruments echo across space in works by Willaert, Gabrieli, Phinot, and others, with shifting textures that highlight the drama of large and small forces. Bach’s dazzling double-choir motet, Singet dem Herrn, crowns the program with jubilant brilliance.
Dec 5–7
Laudate Coeli
Songs of Light in Winter’s Deep
Friday, December 5, 2025, 7:30pm
— Trinity+St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 1620 Gough St, San Francisco
Saturday, December 6, 2025, 7:30pm
— First Congregational Church, 1985 Louis Rd, Palo Alto
Sunday, December 7, 2025, 4pm
— St. John’s Presbyterian, 2727 College Ave, Berkeley
A luminous program of Christmas music spanning three centuries, performed with strings, organ, and harp. Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël offers Romantic warmth and elegance; Charpentier’s In nativitatem Domini brings vivid storytelling and expressive charm; and Buxtehude’s Das neugeborne Kindelein delivers a concise burst of Baroque joy. Join us for three works that light up the season with beauty, harmony, and celebration.
Feb 27-
Mar 1
On Leaving
Music for Parting and Passage
Friday, February 27, 2026, 7:30pm
— St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, February 28, 2026, 7:30pm
— All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley, Palo Alto
Sunday, March 1, 2026, 4pm
— St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft, Berkeley
A contemplative program centered on loss, longing, and transcendence, including Bach’s beloved Jesu, meine Freude and Ildebrando Pizzetti’s hauntingly lyrical Requiem. The concert also features Estonian composer Galina Grigorjeva’s Na Ishod and multiple settings of a plaintive Tenebrae text—together offering a rich meditation on parting and remembrance across time and tradition.
May 1-3
Der Schwanengesang
Schütz’s Final Testament of Faith
Friday, May 1, 2026, 7:30pm
— St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, May 2, 2026, 7:30pm
— All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley, Palo Alto
Sunday, May 3, 2026, 4pm
— St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft, Berkeley
Heinrich Schütz’s monumental Der Schwanengesang, his final and most personal work, stands alone as the culminating statement of the season. This powerfully moving 90-minute setting of Psalm verses and the German Magnificat is a testament to Schütz’s mastery of compositional technique and his profound faith, combining lively vigor and grandeur with moments of intense expressiveness and beauty.
The choir, fall 2017. Photo by Will Toft.