“Thousands of musicians will celebrate Bach’s 330th birthday by playing his compositions in public on Saturday across 129 cities in more than 39 countries,” writes Jessica Gelt in Friday’s (3/20) Los Angeles Times. “They are part of a grass-roots movement called Bach in the Subways…. Dale Henderson, 38, a cellist in New York City who started Bach in the Subways in 2010, says ‘I love this music with my whole soul—it is my soul, in a way.’ … The first year Henderson played alone in the New York subway on multiple weeks. In 2011 he hit on the idea of performing on Bach’s birthday, and he started a Facebook page.… ‘Last year we hit an inflection point,’ Henderson says, referring to the jump to 77 musicians in 12 cities and four countries.… Four orchestras are playing in Chihuahua, Mexico. A Bach flash mob will gather in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest, Hungary.… A jazz trio will play Bach in Vilnius, Lithuania, and in Seattle, dozens of performances are planned…. ‘The rule with Bach in the Subway is that you never know what’s going to happen,’ Henderson says.”
Posted March 20, 2015
