Musicians of the Old Post Road to open Music Worcester’s 167th season

WORCESTER — Music Worcester is about to enter its 167th season presenting concerts, and the award-winning Boston area early-music ensemble Musicians of the Old Post Road has made regular visits to Worcester for performances since 1989 and will be here again for its 37th season.

However, the two respective roads have never merged — until now.

Musicians of the Old Post Road will officially open Music Worcester’s 167th season with a concert on Oct. 5 in First Unitarian Church of Worcester.

“We are thrilled to have been invited to open the season,” said Suzanne Stumpf, Musicians of Old Post Road co-founder and co-artistic director with her husband, Daniel Ryan.

Back to Bach

The concert will also be part of Music Worcester’s “The Complete Bach” project, which began last season and seeks to present live performances of all the known works by the prolific, masterful and matchless German Baroque composer J.S. Bach (1685-1740) culminating in March, 2035, on the 350th anniversary of his birth.

The program for the Oct. 5 concert will feature three Bach cantatas: BWV 170, 173 and 209. (BMV is the universally used catalogue number for Bach’s compositions.) The performance will the ensemble’s first participation in “The Complete Bach.”

“It’s an awesome undertaking,” Stumpf said of the project.

Chris Shepard, Ruth Susan Westheimer artistic director of “The Complete Bach” as well as music director of the Worcester Chorus, “asked us if we were open to an all-cantata program (music for voices and instruments). We decided we’d love to do that,” Stumpf said.

The instrumentalists for the Oct. 5 concert will be Stumpf, flute; Ryan, cello; Sarah Darling, violin; Jesse Irons, violin; Marcia Cassidy, viola; and Michael Beattie, harpsichord and organ. They will be joined by guest vocalists Carley DeFranco, soprano; Carrie Cheron, mezzo-soprano; and Will Prapestis, baritone.

Both BWV 170 and 173 are sacred cantatas written for the season that follows Easter. In contrast, the secular BWV 209 is  one of Bach’s only settings of text in Italian. All three cantatas feature wonderful symphonic moments as well as captivating solo vocals.

Ryan said BMV 170 is “a really gorgeous cantata … (seeking to find) rest amidst the chaos.” Stumpf added, “Which is very apropos, don’t you think?”

BMV 209 “begins with a fabulous sinfonia (orchestral prelude),” Stumpf said. The cantata’s material is mysterious, with references to departing and sailing off to sea. “There’s a lot of fabulous interplay between the orchestra and soprano,” she said.

Exceeding expectations

Music Worcester’s 167th season — one of the oldest performing arts seasons in the country — will also include visits by Orchestra National de France with virtuoso pianist Daniil Trifonov (Nov. 7), the return of celebrated pianist and former Music Worcester artist in residence Simone Dinnerstein (Oct. 24 and 25), renowned violinist Kyung-Wha Chung ((Nov. 2), the American Spiritual Ensemble (Jan. 10) and the Dance Theatre of Harlem (May 9), as well as a total of 11 concerts continuing the “The Complete Bach” project.

There will be two festival weekends featuring “The Complete Bach”: BACHtoberfest Weekend (October 24-26) and Bach’s Birthday Bash Weekend (March 20-22, 2026), both in Mechanics Hall. Shepard said in an announcement that the first season of the Bach project “exceeded all of our expectations, and we were particularly thrilled that so many audience members came from far and wide to be a part of this history-making project.”

Ryan said, “It’s very ambitious. It’s great. There’s so much opportunity for participation (by different groups).”

Stumpf added, “It becomes a great celebration of Bach, which is fabulous.”

Musicans of the Old Post Road’s regular season has the different ways collaboration and cooperation can work in mind with the theme “Cross-Pollinations.”

The ensemble specializes in period instrument performances of music from the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic periods. In addition to its core group of musicians, the group also has guest singers and instrumentalists for many of its concerts. The historic Old Post Road was the primary route for travel and commerce between Boston and New York from the late 1680s through 1849. The group is also well known for rediscovering lost gems from the past and introducing them to modern audiences.

Stumpf and Ryan do a lot of historical music research. From that research, “‘it seems pretty evident musicians have not worked in isolation. More often than not they worked with others. We decided to spotlight these types of relationships,” Stumpf said.

“The connection between composers was eye-opening for us, and will be for the audiences I think,” said Ryan.

The “Cross-Polinations” concert series for Musicians of the Old Post Road’s 37th season will feature four programs celebrating inspiration among composers and across cultures with the ensemble’s signature blend of musical “rediscoveries” in dialogue with beloved 18th-century works. Two concerts will be in Worcester.

The first program is titled “Brilliant Borrowings” and will feature works that exemplify the magic of inspiration and influence among Baroque luminaries such as Telemann and Handel and will inculde the ensemble’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s “Italian Concerto,” created in the spirit of how Bach reworked many of his pieces into new instrumental combinations. The concerts will be in First Parish, Sudbury on Oct. 25, and Old South Church, Boston, and online on Oct. 26.

“Christmas in the Bach Workshop” will be performed on Dec. 13 at First Unitarian of Worcester and online, and Dec. 14 at Old South Church, Boston. The concert will celebrate the season with festive arias, cantatas, and instrumental works by J. S. Bach, his students, and family members. There are “many spokes of a wheel of which (J.S.) Bach is the hub,” Stumpf said.

“A Hive of Creativity” takes audiences to 18th century patron Sara Levy’s Berlin Salon gatherings with works by composers who were part of them such as W.F. Bach and C.P. E. Bach (two sons of J.S. Bach) at concerts on March 14 at First Parish, Wayland and online, and March 15 at Old South Church, Boston.

The season concludes with “Ben Franklin’s Musical Curiosity” May 2 at the Museum of Worcester and online, and May 3 at Shirley-Eustis House, Roxbury. When he was in Paris, Franklin liked to attend the soirées of composer Anne Brillon de Jouy. The program includes songs and instrumental works by Francis Hopkinson, John Antes, James Oswald, C.F. Abel, Brillon de Jouy, and Benjamin Franklin himself.

Brillon De Jouy “was a composer and a very good one,” Stumpf said. Ryan noted that Franklin’s work is a “a very quirky string quartet.” There is some question as to whether Franklin wrote it, but Stumpf thinks he did because the work’s “quirky elements work with who he was.” The program also includes Scottish folk songs, a genre Franklin was a big fan of, Stumpf said. The ensemble will be joined by soprano Emily Siar and fortepianist April Sun, who will perform on an original American-made fortepiano from the early 1800s.

‘We love coming to Worcester’

Musicians of the Old Post Road first came to Worcester to perform on Sept. 24, 1989, at the Salisbury Mansion with a program titled “Music of the Bach Family.”

“We love coming to Worcester. It’s a home away from home,” Stumpf said. “The audiences are very enthusiastic,” said Ryan.

The ensemble’s most recent concert in Worcester, “Through the Looking Glass” at the Museum of Worcester on May 3,  sold out.

Audiences have come back since the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown, but Musicians of the Old Post Road has continued to livestream one performance from each of its four regular season programs. “Actually, we have a good audience from out of state,” Stumpf said.

On Sept. 26 the ensemble was scheduled to release its latest CD, “Into the Light,” which features rediscovered gems by German Baroque composer Christoph Graupner and his colleagues. Graupner (1683-1760) had descended into obscurity until relatively recently and is now receiving attention thanks in part to Stumpf and Ryan’s meticulous research and concert showcasing. The CD project garnered the 2023 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society for the ensemble.

A CD concert-party was held Sept. 13 at the First Parish Church in Weston. Graupner has been another fruitful road for the musicians to travel.

“It was very exciting. People loved the music,” Stumpf said. “It’s very beautful music. Very unique. People were clapping.”

For more information about Music Worcester’s new season, visit musicworcster.org. For more information about Musician’s of the Old Post Road, including subscriptions and tickets for its 37th season, visit oldpostroad.org.

Musicians of the Old Post Road — Presented by Music Worcester

When: 4 p.m. Oct. 5

Where: First Unitarian Church, 90 Main St., Worcester

How much: $45; $20 students; $10 youth 18 and under. musicworcester.org.

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