For Tekla Cunningham, music happens in the connections — not only between the notes but between the humans who produce and experience them.
A leading figure in Seattle’s early music scene — as a charismatic violin virtuoso, artistic director and educator — Cunningham has been reimagining how she and her fellow musicians in the region can forge new connections to offer audiences what the Seattle Bach Festival describes as “a portal into a world of beauty, passion, joy, learning and community.”
Cunningham is the founder and director of the brand-new Seattle Bach Festival, which will launch its inaugural season with a celebratory concert of orchestral and choral music by its namesake, Johann Sebastian Bach (Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, Orchestral Suite No. 3 and the cantata “Wir Danken Dir”). Along with a performance at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle on Jan. 12, SBF is bringing the program to venues in Lynnwood and Tacoma.
Starting a new performing arts organization in the current environment is, to say the least, a risky endeavor. But Cunningham is convinced it’s essential: “In our postpandemic reality, there is so much to do in the rebuilding of community bonds, and music is a very powerful and healing way to do that.”
A major impetus behind Cunningham’s vision for SBF is to rally the region’s wealth of talented artists with a renewed sense of purpose in response to these challenges. Cunningham, who was born and raised in Seattle, hopes her initiative can help fill the void left by the loss of such early music organizations as Pacific MusicWorks, which ceased operations this year.
“We want to offer high-level performances of baroque masterworks that support musicians in our community and bring people together,” she said in a recent conversation at a Capitol Hill cafe. “That means hiring artists who live and work in our region and paying fair wages. It also means creating a culture that values these fabulous musicians who make their home in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.”
Why the focus on Bach? “There’s something in that music that touches people very deeply, no matter where they’re coming from. … And his approachability makes him relevant to a broader public.”
Cunningham found an ideal way to illustrate both points by presenting local screenings of the 2023 German documentary “Living Bach” (directed by Anna Schmidt) over the fall. It served as a prelude both to announce SBF’s opening season and to indicate the kind of community building the new organization aspires to achieve.
The film follows the journey of singers in amateur choirs from all walks of life across six continents as they converge to perform together in Leipzig, Germany, at the largest Bach festival in the world. But Cunningham wanted it to be more than a passive viewing experience: “We did a singalong at the screening as a way to connect audiences and musicians — and connecting is the core of what we’re seeking to do with the festival.”
Diane Grover, an early music enthusiast who has sung in local community choirs for decades, explained why she found “Living Bach” especially moving: “You could see the appeal of this music in so many places and cultures. I think Bach speaks to modern audiences centuries later because of the emotional range of his music. There’s something for everyone.”
Seattle-based film director John Gordon Hill, who is also a harpsichordist and composer, said the film gave a foretaste of what SBF can offer for the region’s cultural life. Describing the cantata (a vocal-instrumental format) that the gathered singers join to perform in “Living Bach,” he noted that “about 200 cantatas by Bach survive, but they’re so rarely heard in live performance. It’s wonderful that the festival is drawing on this staggeringly rich and beautiful repertoire.”
Hill is referring to the cantata on the theme of thanksgiving scheduled for the inaugural concert as well as to SBF’s other large-scale program in May, which will present two of Bach’s most-grandiose cantatas (plus a concerto by his older contemporary, Georg Philipp Telemann). In addition, SBF’s first season will present a chamber concert in February and a spring recital combining Bach’s solo violin music and a newly commissioned piece by Melia Watras with choreography by Anna Mansbridge.
The SBF Orchestra that Cunningham has put together will partner with the Edmonds-based Evergreen Ensemble, a group of choral artists led by David Hendrix, to perform the cantatas and other big choral works planned for future seasons.
A guiding principle for SBF is “to bridge the divide between the people onstage and the people in the audience.” One simple but effective idea is to invite concertgoers to don name tags “so audience members at our events can get to know one another as well as the musicians during postconcert mingling,” Cunningham said. “This is about breaking down barriers and creating a sense of community.”
SBF also plans to introduce an annual early music community picnic to encourage musicians, audiences, students and supporters to get to know people outside their immediate circle. Still another initiative is a “concert squad” SBF has been organizing: small groups of musicians and students and other interested folks who attend concerts by other organizations.
A series of outreach events to welcome audiences and make them feel more involved in the music includes “The Cantata Trail,” led by the local flutist Miguel Rodé. “Miguel offers smaller groups of music enthusiasts opportunities to engage and ask questions about the music,” according to Cunningham.
Looking ahead, Cunningham’s goal is to present some of Bach’s largest-scale works: the “Christmas Oratorio” next year and the “St. Matthew Passion” in 2027. “These large works are milestones because they take a village to produce,” she said. “So they’re especially meaningful on a community level. This whole project has allowed me to imagine the community I want and to think deeply about how this music impacts us all.”