Bach by design

The Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra marks its first decade of Bachesque derring-do

- BARRY DAVIS

Johann Sebastian Bach was a masterful chameleon. His vast oeuvre is replete with charts that lend themselves to - nay, openly invite - freewheeling renditions as per the performer in question's informed personal and artistic take. Hence, it makes perfect sense to have the 10th edition of the Bach Festival run the same week as Purim, our own holiday of manifold guises, disguises, and costumes.

The event was initiated and is perennially overseen by Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra (JBO) founder, harpsichord player, and conductor Prof. David Shemer, who also serves as musical director. In the latter capacity, he continues to cook up eclectic programmatic spreads for our intrigued musical consumership, with this year's outing scheduled for March 5-11. All told, there are nine concerts to be enjoyed, as well as a themed exhibition, courtesy of the Bach House in Eisenach, Germany, at venues in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.

In Bach's day - something which often escapes classical music fans improvisation was part and parcel of the compositional and performance way of going about things. Bach, for example, did not always set hard and fast rules with regard to the instrumental lineup used for renditions of his works. And he was a pretty nifty musical extrapolator himself.

That accommodating mindset informs the festival agenda, which encompasses such diverse artistic, cultural, disciplinary, and philosophical goalposts as liturgical texts, jazz, Nordic and Middle Eastern textures and sensibilities, and physical manifestations of the squiggles Bach applied so dexterously and deftly to his scrolls of sheet music paper.