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.