HISTORY
The Berkshire Bach Society was founded in 1990 by teacher, writer, musician, and music critic Simon Wainrib, who had a life-long devotion to the music of J.S. Bach. The Society grew out of a series of Wainrib’s lectures on Bach cantatas at the former Albert Schweitzer Institute in Great Barrington. Wainrib gathered like-minded local people—professors, publishers, playwrights, musicians, and music lovers— to create an organization dedicated to the performance of Bach’s cantatas. A key to Wainrib’s early success was to bring famous musicians to the Berkshires to play for a fraction of their normal wage in exchange for a bed, a roof, and a good time in the Berkshires.
In the seasons that followed, Berkshire Bach concerts expanded to include organ works, concerti, and chamber music by other Baroque composers as well as performances of large works such as J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, Christmas Oratorio, Magnificat, and B-minor Mass, Gluck’s opera Orfeo e Euridice, and Handel’s oratorios Judas Maccabaeus and Israel in Egypt.
The Berkshire Bach Singers formed in the very early years, and sang under choral conductors including James Bagwell, David Griggs Janower, Scott Metcalfe, Frank Nemhauser, Penna Rose, Jed Watson, Brad Wells, and Richard Westenburg.
In 1993, Kenneth Cooper founded the Berkshire Bach Ensemble and remained as its Music Director through the 2016-17 season. Dr. Cooper brought an impressive array of special guests and soloists to perform for Berkshire Bach audiences including Chris Brubeck, Bill Crofut, Simone Dinnerstein, Eugene Drucker, Walter Hilse, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Bernard Krainis, Ben Luxon, Charles Neidich, Anthony Newman, Ronald Roseman, Joseph Silverstein, Peter Sykes, Ben Verdery, Carol Wincenc, and Eugenia Zukerman.
Also in 1993, The Berkshire Bach Society began what has become an ongoing tradition and audience favorite, the Bach at New Year’s performances, now in three regional venues—the venerable Academy of Music in Northampton, the acoustically rich Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, NY, and our home base, the classic Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. For 23 years, Kenneth Cooper led a core of extraordinary musicians in these performances emphasizing the six “Brandenburg” Concerti, and establishing an annual Berkshires holiday tradition. The Mahaiwe is filled to the rafters year after year on New Year’s Eve for this celebratory event, and audiences in Northampton, MA, and Troy, NY continue to grow. Nine-time Grammy Award winner and founding member of the Emerson String Quartet, Eugene Drucker was appointed Music Director of Bach at New Year’s in 2017.
Berkshire Bach launched another favorite tradition in the 1990s with the annual Messiah Sing Along on Thanksgiving weekend. In the early years led by the ever-popular and engaging choral director, Frank Nemhauser and accompanied by the Berkshire Bach Players, audience members performed as chorus and sometimes as soloists singing selections from Handel’s most popular oratorio.
Yet another tradition started in The Society’s early years was the celebration of Bach’s birthday in the style of the composer’s collegium musicum at Herr Zimmermann’s coffeehouse in Leipzig. The annual March party served up period-specific tavern food, highlighted exceptional young artists from the Pre-College Division at the Juilliard School and other elite conservatories, and regaled party-goers with musical games and fun.
In keeping with its mission, Berkshire Bach presents an annual mid-winter concert of organ works with prominent specialists playing the “King of Instruments.” Soloists including Peter Sykes, Anthony Newman, Renée-Anne Louprette, Walter Hilse, Brink Bush, Heinrich Christensen and Christa Rakich have thrilled us with exceptional programming from Bach, Buxtehude and others, periodically complemented by the thrilling sound of brass. Because of its popularity, we added a second organ concert and now showcase two important historical organs of the Berkshires—at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire and the First Congregational Church in Great Barrington. The instruments are true cultural treasures, dating from the 1890s.
The Society continues to be dedicated to presenting choral works by Bach and other Baroque masters and looks for repertoire that inspires, entertains, and satisfies. Our audiences remember superior performances led by BBS DIrector of Choral Music and Principal Conductor James Bagwell of Bach’s Coffee Cantata, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Magnificat, and St. John Passion as well as rarely-heard sacred works by Bach’s friend and musical peer, G.P. Telemann. Our singers and instrumentalists are drawn from an international roster of professional musicians and are accompanied by The Berkshire Bach Ensemble, Eugene Drucker Concertmaster.
In 2017 Eugene Drucker was appointed Music Director upon the retirement of Kenneth Cooper and in 2024 originated the role of Artistic Director. The following year he introduced BBS Portals—Films, Books, and Talks about Bach, a series that explores creativity and the impact the music of J.S. Bach has had on later artists across artistic disciplines. The series is now part of the collaboration between Berkshire Bach and the Tanglewood Learning Institute that was begun in 2025.
The Berkshire Bach Society is an important contributor to the cultural fabric of the region and continues to grow our membership and our audiences in the Berkshires and beyond with the goal of securing the future of fine programming and performances of Baroque music.
Your support means the world to us and to future generations.
