WORCESTER — It's coming Bach!
As in the second "All Bach All Weekend" Jan. 26-28 at Clark University, with five performances, two of them free, exploring the great Baroque composer J.S. Bach's most powerful and beloved chamber works, including the complete Goldberg Variations.
Last year saw the debut of the first-of-a-kind festival for Worcester (or at least, first in a long time) put on by and featuring musicians who wanted to perform Bach's works live in a concentrated, Bach-to-Bach setting.
But if you build a three-day Bach program, will they (as in an audience) come?
"I think it was a wonderful success," said cellist Ariana Falk, co-director of "All Bach All Weekend" with viola player/violinist Peter Sulski, about last year's festival.
"It was a lot of music in just a short time. We didn't know if people would be up for going to so many concerts in short a time," she said.
"The audiences were pretty good. Especially for the free shows, the hall was almost full, which was very good." For the ticketed performances, audiences were "smaller but appreciative, a pleasure to play for. We have a hunger to perform that music live, and people had a hunger to hear that music live, so it seemed like a natural progression to bring it back for a second year."
All of this weekend's concerts will be in Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts, at Clark University, 92 Downing St.
The first concert, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, will present the Bach Consort of Worcester in a program that includes two orchestral suites and the magnificent Concerto for two Violins, Strings and Continuo in D Minor. That's all J.S. Bach. Another work that will be performed is Sinfonia in B-flat Major by C.P.E. Bach, one of the composer's talented composer sons. The Bach Consort of Worcester consists of about eight to 10 professional string players, including Falk and Sulski, and harpsichordist Michelle Graveline, professor of music at Assumption College. Tickets for the concert are $20.
A free concert at 3 p.m. Saturday will showcase Sulski playing Partitas for Solo Violin by J.S. Bach.
Falk will perform Bach's Suites for Solo Cello Nos. 5 and 6 at 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $15.
At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sulski, Falk and Graveline will combine for Bach's Sonatas for Violin and Gamba. The concert is free.
"All Bach All Weekend" will conclude at 3 p.m. Sunday with a concert featuring an arrangement of the Goldberg Variations for String Trio by Russian composer Dmitry Sitkovetsky with Falk, Sulski and violist Marcus Thompson. Tickets are $20.
"It's a pretty nice way to spend the weekend. It's really special to hear this music live," Falk said.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750) has been said to have "spectacularly crowned the Baroque era." His compositions ranged from exquisite works for solo instruments and chamber ensembles to soaring masterpieces for choruses and orchestras. But as Sulski noted in an interview last year, "It's incredible, and how often do you hear it live anywhere?" The opportunities are not as many as one might think.
Falk, like Sulski, has an opportunity to perform a solo program of Bach on Saturday.
"The joy of working on music like that is you can really get into a groove and feel the journey of this amazing music," she said.
Bach's Cello Suites, a set of six in total, "are really at the core of what we (cellists) play our entire lives. We start young, and come back to them."
The sixth was written by Bach for a five-string cello - "an instrument that doesn't exist any more, but the music is so great. It becomes more like a tour de force to get around all the notes," Falk said.
The string trio arrangement for the Goldberg Variations has "little gems of movement" amid a great deal of variety, Falk said. Meanwhile, Thompson is "one of the most distinguished violists from around the region."
The Bach Consort of Worcester was formed in 2010 and plays regularly for Assumption College's HumanArts series and is the house ensemble for the Salisbury Singers, which Graveline also directs. The ensemble will perform a free Bach concert at noon Jan. 25 at Assumption College's Jeanne Y. Curtis Performance Hall in the Tsotsis Family Academic Center.
Falk and Sulksi are also members of the Worcester Chamber Music Society, and Falk is WCMS's education director and runs its Neighborhood Strings and Music Camp programs.
Neighborhood Strings provides free music lessons to youth from Main South while fostering family engagement. Currently 50 families are involved, Falk said.
"All Bach All Weekend" will be "right in the neighborhood," Falk said, "so we're trying to create opportunities for having a lot of kids (attend) and hopefully expand their horizons."
It's a way to make sure audiences keep coming back to such events for years to come.
"There will be a youth presence at the festival," Falk said.
"All Bach All Weekend" is co-sponsored by the Worcester Arts Council, Assumption College and Clark University.
Contact Richard Duckett at richard.duckett@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @TGRDuckett