Sonoma Bach Choir | Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Directed by Robert Worth and Amanda McFadden

Bachgrounder 35 minutes before each performance

Sonoma Bach presented its first Early Music Christmas in 2012; each year since, we have offered a fresh take on this venerable tradition. For our 12th annual EMC, we call upon the great Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672), one of our all-time favorite composers, and his Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi, a wondrous telling of the Christmas tale first performed in Dresden in 1660. The setting calls for a rich ensemble, complete with choir, vocal soloists, and a colorful orchestra including cornetti and sackbuts. We’ll augment Schütz’s telling of the story with additional works from his milieu, extending the narrative back to include the Annunciation and the Visitation, and forward to include a very special peroration.