(bright music) - Will you consider this?

We can bring back music from the ages and this young man has done just that in Peoria and helped found the Bach Music Festival for the past 20 years.

You did it.

And this is S. Blake Duncan.

- Duncan.

Right.

- And so I can call you Blake.

I won't even ask what the S stands for.

It might be something really fun or- - [Blake] Well, yes.

- Not so fun.

- [Blake] Of course.

- It's okay.

But welcome.

And tell me a little bit about yourself.

Where did you grow up and how did this all begin?

- Well, I'm from Delaware.

- [Christine] Hmm.

- The state of Delaware.

I was born and bred there.

Lived there for all my childhood.

And while I was there I ended up starting to play the oboe, modern oboe.

And just always was very attracted to music, opera, symphony music.

So I started playing the oboe and played it through high school and then went to New New England Conservatory in Boston to study the oboe and became a professional modern oboe player.

But I've always been interested in early music ever since I was a kid, really.

- And do you have any idea why?

Did your parents have albums, you know, vinyls that you listened to or.

- Well, back in those days, I mean, we're talking about the sixties.

- [Christine] Record players.

- They had record record players, but, early music was not really a thing yet.

I mean, it was just in the beginnings of sort of the renewal of interest in early music.

- [Christine] Uh huh.

- Which was centered in places like New York and Boston.

And so when I'm ended up at New England Conservatory in Boston, there was a sort of a groundbreaking ensemble there called the "The Boston Camerata".

And they were doing a whole bunch of new stuff, which was really exciting, early music.

And I was very attracted to it.

And I bought myself a recorder and I'd learned to play the recorder and managed to convince the head of the early music program, whose name was Daniel Pinkham, who's actually a famous composer- - [Christine] Mm hmm.

- To allow me to take some graduate level courses, even though I was an undergraduate oboe major.

And so that's how I got started.

And I bought my baroque, my first baroque oboe while I was a student at New England Conservatory.

And this is back in the late seventies.

- [Christine] Hmm.

- So I've been doing it for a while.

- I guess.

And do you find it fascinating that, that was just planted in your brain somehow and that it grasped you and you held on?

- Yeah, it's very, I mean, it's really interesting to me that, you know, I just have always been really attracted to music, but not just one kind of music.

I mean, you know, my interest goes all the way back to the Middle Ages.

- [Christine] Mm hmm.

- And music from the Middle Ages, which is a really complicated subject, and we're not dealing with that with the Bach Festival.

But music of the Baroque period, which is specifically music of the late Baroque period, J.S.

Bach, of course, comes from the late Baroque period.

- [Christine] Mm hmm, Bach and Handel.

- His death date is usually cited by scholars as the end of the Baroque period.

- Really?

- 1750.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

So we are focused mostly on Baroque music, but I've always had this very interest in a whole variety of different kinds.

And as an orchestral player, I played with a Peoria Symphony for a number of years.

You know, we played all kinds of music, you know, from all kinds of different periods, but mostly romantic and contemporary music.

- Alright, well so what brought you to Peoria?

You were an instructor, you taught at Bradley University?

- I taught at Bradley University.

I was the oboe teacher at Bradley and also ended up teaching music appreciation and music technology and directing an ensemble called "The Collegium Musicum", which was the early music ensemble at Bradley.

And just doing a whole variety of things like that.

- So how did you get the job at Bradley?

I mean you were an East coast kind of guy and then you came to Midwest.

- [Blake] Well, I was living in Bloomington.

- Oh, okay.

- At the time.

- [Christine] Alright.

- So my family and I had moved to Bloomington, Illinois.

I was working at St. John's Lutheran Church.

And just one thing happened, you know, I got to know some folks at Bradley and I ended up- - [Christine] And they said, we need you.

- They invited me to be their instructor.

- All right.

Wow.

So you didn't just incubate this idea for the Bach Festival, 'cause I remember we have the banners hanging up all around town.

How did that all come about?

- Yeah, I think it's important to give credit where credit is due.

And that would be Dr. John Jost.

This is really his work.

He was the principal driving force.

He and Martin Dickey, who at the time when we started in 2003, was the music director at Trinity Lutheran Church here in Peoria.

- Mm hmm.

- And so the two of them teamed up and I, and you know, a couple of my colleagues, Kyle Dzapos, the flute teacher at Bradley and Marsha Henry, we participated in encouraging John and helping John with ideas and stuff like that.

But really, John and Marty were the two driving forces to create a festival that focuses on the music of J.S.

Bach.

And initially it was only a couple years before we started with a major program so that every night there would be a concert.

And then at the end of the week we would do two festival concerts.

So we did one Friday night, one Saturday night.

Now that was 20 years ago or so, over 10, 20 years ago.

And since then we've had the pandemic, we had no festival in- - [Christine] That year.

- 2020.

- [Christine] Right.

- And coming back from that, we cut out the Saturday Night Festival concert.

So we just have the Friday Night Festival concert and we've also moved from Trinity Lutheran to Westminster Presbyterian.

So now Westminster Presbyterian is our host and we're performing there.

And all the concerts are at Westminster.

- And you have some educational performances this year or, I don't know.

- Every year.

Yes, every year.

It's been an important thing.

They do a young person's concert, where they invite the various teachers to recommend students who have learned something by Bach.

But it doesn't have to just be Bach.

It can be someone, you know, a composer who was a colleague of Bob Handel Telemann, something like that.

You know, just usually late baroque, but invite young people who are studying.

And if any of the viewers are young musicians who are learning Bach, a cello suite or a violin suite or a keyboard, one of "The Well-Tempered Clavier" then you should get in touch, go to the website and apply to perform because they're always looking for young people to perform.

And then we have other programs too, various community concerts and there's lectures and couple chamber concerts.

- But it's always the first week of June.

- It has always been the first week of June.

Of course, you know, how you define first week, depending on where the first falls means it might- - [Christine] The first full week of June.

- The full, well, not always.

Sometimes a little bit of May.

- Okay.

- But usually part of it is the first week.

This year it is the first full week of June.

- [Christine] Of June.

- Because it's June- - [Christine] The way that it- - June 1st is on a Sunday.

- Well, how, what a blessing that is then.

- [Blake] Yes, right.

- Alright, so now I had to look up when you had first gotten in touch with me about a pitch and there was a pitch of A one 15, A one 15.

- [Blake] No.

- No.

Okay.

- [Blake] Yeah, okay, so.

- Tell me about the, you know, I can listen to the music, but I don't know anything about those specifics.

- All right, I'll try to make this succinct.

(Christine laughing) 'Cause it's a complicated question.

- Right.

- Music is divided up.

Basically, music is vibrations.

- [Christine] Mm hmm.

- And vibrations are at cycles per second.

- [Christine] And the Hertz.

- Right.

- [Christine] Cycles, okay.

- So normally nowadays in modern times, orchestras tune to an A.

- [Christine] Mm hmm.

- On the piano, an A.

- [Christine] From a middle C. - Above middle C. - Right.

- Which is 440 hertz.

- Okay.

- Or- - 440, okay.

- Cycles per second.

Now it hasn't always been that way.

I mean, everything develops over time, right?

So going back to the Middle Ages, if you were in Italy, you would have, the pitch level would've been one.

You'd go to Paris, it would be something different.

You'd go to London, it would be something different entirely.

- [Christine] Really?

- So the pitch level was never organized in the Middle Ages.

It basically coalesced over time.

Even in at the, we get to the late Baroque with the time of Bach, it was beginning to sort of settle around 415 cycles.

- [Christine] 415, okay.

- Per second, which is exactly a half step lower.

But even there, it wasn't exact.

So that there still were differences.

But the problem with differences is that you'd have to have different instruments.

Right?

So I couldn't take my 415 oboe to Paris, let's say, and play at 392.

- Because it was designed for- - Because it's designed for 415.

- All right.

- Right, so, but in order to make it work, for the majority of folks who are mostly used to having pitched to be consistent, the basic consensus is that low pitch nowadays is at 415.

- [Christine] Alright.

- And modern pitch orchestras like The Peoria Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Chicago Symphony- - [Christine] 440.

- They tune at 440 or thereabouts.

- All right.

So there is definitely a different sound between the baroque instrument oboe and the modern day oboe.

So can you demonstrate that for us really quickly with the baroque first?

It's lower.

- Yeah.

- It's a lower pitch.

- It's a little lower pitch.

But you know, the one difference, if you can see obviously the big difference is the fact that there's key work.

- Right.

- All, all kinds of, I mean, really complicated key work.

- Right.

- Which developed over time.

So, you know, adding a key here and a key there all through the 19th century.

Originally the oboe, which came from a different instrument, the shawm, which was the medieval version, was an instrument that was very, very loud.

And what the big difference between the shawm and the oboe is the size of the bore and the, just the overall size of the instrument.

The bore of the baroque instrument is a little smaller.

- [Christine] Yes.

- And obviously the wood is also different.

This is made out of boxwood.

This is made out of African hardwood.

It really makes a difference because the hardwood is much bigger sound.

- Okay.

- This is a much softer, sweeter sound.

And that was what they were going for.

- Okay.

- Right.

So.

- For like the chamber music and that sort of thing - For chamber music, for playing in church.

- Okay.

- That kind of thing.

And of course these are double reeded instruments.

So I have to make these reeds and whittle 'em down.

(reed whistling) And then they buzz.

- Specifically for that instrument.

- Yes, I have to make them for whatever instrument I'm playing, I have to make reeds.

As long as it's a double reeded instrument.

And the bassoon is also a double reeded instrument.

(reed whistling) I'll use this reed.

- [Christine] Okay.

(laughs) - So, you know, I put the reed on the instrument and then.

- [Christine] And go from there.

(lively music) (lively music continues) - So.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - I love it.

All right.

Now can you play the same thing on the modern day and let's hear the difference.

- Alright.

- And this is just a single reed?

Or is this?

- No, it's a double reed also.

- Okay.

- But it's obviously, it's a different reed.

- [Christine] I see.

- It's a little bit narrower.

It's a longer reed, 'cause the reed, of course, this brass tubing.

- Mm hmm.

- Extends the bore of the instrument.

- Okay.

- Up to the reed.

- All right.

(bright music) - So, yeah.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - I love it.

So you could definitely hear the difference, 'cause this one, it's mellow.

- [Blake] It's much more mellow, yes.

- Yeah.

- And really when I'm playing with an instrument like the recorder, which is this instrument, which is more in the flute family.

- [Christine] Right.

- This is gonna blend easier than- - [Christine] With the recorder, than the modern day.

- Yes.

It's easy to drown out the recorder, but this instrument is much more a partner with the recorder, because it's also very soft and delicate.

I can play really soft and really delicately.

I mean, I can too, but it's actually a lot more work.

- Hard, because you have to hold it in yourself.

- [Blake] Well, I just have to control it a little bit more.

- Right.

- And, but this system is really designed for that kind of really gentle, delicate playing.

And so are the rest of the ensemble that we're playing, that we're playing a concert on Thursday afternoon of Chamber Cantatas with a soprano.

- Okay.

- And it's myself playing oboe.

- [Christine] Okay.

- A baroque oboe.

And Lisette Kielson who is one of the nation's leading recorder players.

She's playing alto recorder, and- - [Christine] On that day, on that Thursday?

- On that day.

Michael Dicker, who used to teach at ISU and plays in the Peoria Symphony on modern bassoon, he's playing baroque bassoon.

We have a wonderful baroque cellist coming up from St. Louis by the name of Stephanie Hunt.

And then Polly Brecht, who's the music director at Westminster, is a brilliant harpsichordist.

And she will be our harpsichordist.

So we're playing this chamber concert.

And then Courtney, Courtney Huffman is our soloist.

And we're doing "Cantatas" by Handle, Telemann, Scarlatti.

And also we're doing excerpts from a cantata by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre And Élisabeth Jacquet is a woman who was a published composer from the late 1600s.

- [Christine] Back in the day when women didn't do that sort thing.

- That's right.

Her story is very, very interesting.

Élisabeth Jacquet was an aristocratic woman.

You would expect that.

But apparently, her family was involved in the musical instrument making trade, I think specifically violins.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And she studied as a little child, she studied keyboard and apparently played a concert or played a performance for Louis the 14th when she was like 10 or 11 or something like that.

- [Christine] Really?

- And he was so taken with her and she was so good that he then paid for her education and was her supporter all the rest of his life.

And he then underwrote the publication of her work.

She published six whole full books of cantatas, trio sonatas, all kinds of, just one book after the other of keyboard works.

She was very prolific and very popular.

Her family's name was Jacquet.

She married a man by the name of De La Guerre.

- [Christine] Oh.

- So that's why we call her Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre.

- [Christine] Right.

- So, and I believe that this is probably the first time any of her cantatas have been performed- - [Christine] Will be performed.

- In the state of Illinois.

- [Christine] Okay.

- I mean, I can't say that for sure.

I don't know what's going on in Chicago.

- [Christine] Okay.

- But my guess- - [Christine] But to your knowledge.

- To my knowledge, I doubt that "Samson" has been performed before and we're doing just a few arias from that.

The piece itself is relatively long.

It's about 40 minutes.

- So when this is all decided, who does all the decision making for what will be performed and for the Bach Festival every year?

- Well.

- [Christine] Because it's grown into- - Yeah.

- [Christine] Now a consistent.

- Well, every program's a little different.

You know, the one with the kids that's put together by Carrie Walters, who used to be the voice teacher at Bradley.

- [Christine] Right.

- And she gets the applications and she talks to the kids and she puts the program together.

For the chamber concerts, we've traditionally just invited someone like myself to be the curator of the concert.

- [Christine] Mm hmm.

- And last year, for the concert last year, I suggested that we do an early, you know, an early instrument concert at Low Pitch.

And so we did that last year.

It was very successful.

We're doing it again this year, but this year, instead of just trio sonatas, we're doing these cantatas with a singer.

The afternoon concert on Friday is a program that is being curated by Carol Wessler.

And that focuses on the musical offering.

- All right.

That's at noon, 12:05.

- Yes.

- On that Friday, James.

- Oh no, I'm sorry, I got that wrong.

I'm sorry.

It's "Box Goldberg Variations".

- Okay.

Alright.

- So they will be taking this rather long piece that Bach wrote several of these long pieces, "The Musical Offering" being one of the others.

And so they're taking that and then they're performing that, I think with a group of string players, it should be a wonderful concert.

And I think our concert should be really interesting too.

- One thing that's interesting about this is that you have all this talent coming together.

You have educational things, you have enjoyable music.

And it's a free will offering.

- [Blake] That's right.

Except for the festival concert.

- Okay.

- And the festival concert, how we have traditionally performed up cantata or several cantatas by Bach, he wrote probably in the vicinity of 400.

Of those, there's about 250, 240 that were around.

So there's plenty of cantatas to do.

And we've done quite a few over the years.

This year we're doing "Cantata 23", which was Bach's audition cantata for the job at Leipzig.

And then we're doing the famous cantata, "Wachet Auf 140" which is pretty well known.

And then we've also included on the program some of the orchestral music.

Bach didn't write a lot of orchestral music, but he wrote six Brandenburg concertos and four orchestral suites.

And so we just sort of work our way through those back and forth.

And then occasionally something different.

Like this year for example, Adriana Ransom, who's a cellist, plays principal cello in the Peoria Symphony, she is going to play the C.P.E.

Bach, Cello Concerto in B flat major.

And C.P.E.of course was J.S.

's son.

- [Christine] Alright.

- And probably, his most celebrated son, C.P.E.

Bach ended up working for Ferdinand the Great.

- [Christine] Oh.

- And so he was probably the best established of the Bach kids.

There were several other musicians among them, but they didn't have quite as a big a job.

- [Christine] An illustrious career.

- Carl Philipp Emanuel.

- Alright.

Okay.

All right, so this music is enjoyable, (clears throat) but all those years ago you decided Bach needed to be exposed to more people.

- Yeah.

Bach is really the culmination of a whole several hundred years of tradition that arose in various parts of Europe and it sort of coalesces in the North German school, which would be primarily Bach, but not just Bach, Telemann, who was a great friend of Bach and also Handel, who actually never met Bach.

But they corresponded quite a lot often.

- [Christine] Huh.

- And.

- [Christine] And Vivaldi as well?

- Vivaldi is the earlier, and he is Italy and, he made it to Paris by the end of his life, but I don't think he and Bach ever encountered each other.

But certainly Bach knew of Vivaldi because he took some of Vivaldi's music and reset it for, organ solo for example.

- [Christine] Mm hmm.

- And that was how they did at music education back in those days.

- [Christine] Right.

- They would copy scores - [Christine] By hand.

- And, you know, baroque music or the style of baroque music emerged in two locations in the 1600s.

One was Italy, Corelli, Vivaldi, Albinoni a whole bunch of other Italian composers.

And then on the other hand we have Paris people like Lully for example.

Later we have Rameau, Lully and Charpentier.

And then it's the North Germans, Handle, Bach, Telemann, they start bringing those styles together.

Handle, for example, studied in Italy.

So he learned the Italian style- - [Christine] And he.

- But also knew the French style.

So we begin to see that.

So, you know, in the music that we're doing this time, you're gonna hear a variety of different styles.

There's a lot of music that is very Italianate.

All of these long melismas that's very and fast notes.

That's typical of the Italian style.

But then the very first piece we're playing is the orchestral suite number one, which is a series of French dances.

And those come from France.

Those dances were danced in the 1600s.

- [Christine] To this very.

- Not to this particular music.

- Oh.

- Just there are hundreds and hundreds of these orchestral suites that have been composed in the 17th century for use in the court of Louis the 14th because dance was a big deal in the court of Louis 14th.

And everybody danced.

I mean literally everybody danced.

If you wanted a job as the war minister, you had to dance.

- [Christine] Okay.

- And in fact, French dance is the beginnings of classical ballet.

- Oh.

(clears throat) Well I have learned a lot here now, if I could only remember it all.

(clears throat) So let's go.

This is the first full week of June.

- [Blake] Yes.

- And the performances are at Westminster Presbyterian on Moss Avenue.

- [Blake] Yes, that's right.

- And where would people find out more information about this?

What's the website to remember?

- There is a website.

- Is that on here?

- It's.

- Let's see, where did it.

- It's www.peoriabachfestival.org, www.peoriabachfestival, that's all together, no capitals.org.

- Alright.

Sounds great.

Well, I would like to thank you for educating me and educating us and performing.

You can go ahead and hit a little bit of the recorder, while we close out, but- - Okay.

- Thank you Blake Duncan for being here.

Thank you for joining us.

And all the best to you.

- Thank you very much.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - Thank you.

(claps) (gentle music) (bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)