This festive concert will feature soprano Sheena Ramirez, trumpet player Judith Saxton, trombonist Jay Crone, pianist David Berry, and the Bach Festival String Quartet. Artistic Director Kenneth Nafziger will lead the assembled forces in works of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi, plus some of the season’s most famous carols.

A reception will follow the concert.

91����Ƶ the artists

Sheena Ramirez, described as a “light, perky soprano” (New York Times) has been thrilling classical audiences all over the country and around the world. This summer she presented a solo voice and organ recital in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland and participated in the Opera Studio program at the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria. In 2015, she won “Best Female Voice” at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Harrogate, England as the lead in Patience with the Blue Hill Troupe. She sang leading roles in the American premiers of Olivo e Pasquale (Isabella) and I Due Figaro (Inez) with New York City Opera company Amore Opera, as well as the roles of Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Frasquita (Carmen), and Gretel (Hansel and Gretel).  In 2016, she began work on her Doctorate in Voice Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature at James Madison University. In her time there, she has sung the role of Cunegonde (Candide), performed solo works at the Contemporary Music Festival, all while serving as the Director of Recruitment for the College of Visual and Performing Arts.  Sheena is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory (BM) and New England Conservatory (MM).

David Berry, a native of Syracuse, NY, is an active soloist and chamber musician. Berry earned his BM from the Eastman School of Music, and MM and DMA degrees in piano performance from the Juilliard School. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at 91����Ƶ.

Jay Crone, professor of music, joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1994. Mr. Crone is currently the Principal Trombone of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Opera Roanoke, the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra, the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra, and also performs regularly with the Richmond Symphony (VA).

Judith Saxton is an international trumpet soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and educator across the U.S. and recently in China, Greece, UK, Italy and Brazil. She is on the Eastern Music Festival faculty and has over 20 recordings. She is a Conn Selmer Trumpet Artist and Certified Alexander Technique Teacher.

91����Ƶ the festival

The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival . on the campus of 91����Ƶ, is a week-long summer music festival devoted to promoting an appreciation and understanding of the music of Bach and a featured composer, country, era or people.  The week includes three featured concerts with orchestra, soloists, and choir; six chamber music concerts; a Leipzig Service; and open rehearsals. Additional offerings include internships, youth programs, Road Scholar (Elderhostel), and the Virginia Baroque Performance Academy.

The Festival Orchestra, with its fine professional musicians from all over the country, produces vibrant performances. Membership in the Festival Choir, a volunteer ensemble, is open to the public and allows vocalists, both amateur and professional, to sing the most celebrated works of the orchestral-choral repertoire.

From the beginning, says , SVBF’s conductor, artistic director, and co-founder, the intention has been to make each festival so different from those which preceded it that no one could ever say, “been there, done that.”

“Bach is the constant,” Nafziger says, “but the material around him is always changing.”

This year’s festival will feature, on its opening night, such crowd-pleasing fare as Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto in G major, No. 4; and his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major (source of the famous “Air on the G String”); as well as, to close the second festival concert on Friday the 16th, the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (“Unfinished”) of Franz Schubert.

Opening the second concert, SVBF concertmaster will team with violist Diane Phoenix-Neal and cellist Beth Vanderborgh on the Sinfonia Concertante in A major of Carl Phillipp Stamitz, a near-contemporary of Bach.

The fourth Brandenburg Concerto, which has been played several times previously at the SVBF, will this year exhibit an early music texture consistent with what Bach’s own musicians may have produced, thanks to the use of recorders in place of the usual flutes.

Recorder players Nancy Garlick and David McGown will be joined by violin soloist , a Baroque specialist and founder of the Charlottesville-based ensemble Three Notch’d Road.

McCormick, who will  appear for the first time on the SVBF stage, is also the festival’s newly appointed executive director. He says SVBF is characterized by a “wonderful sense of community” in which not only the performers share, but also music-lovers from all over the Eastern seaboard and beyond.

“As someone who lives and breathes the music of Bach’s period, I’m thrilled to be part of this festival,” McCormick says.

In keeping with the festival’s “Bach is just the beginning” credo, it will also serve as a platform, the second and third festival concerts, for several recent works by Los Angeles-based composer and violinist Maria Newman.

In addition to a pair of string concerti, Newman, daughter of nine-time Academy Award-winning composer/conductor Alfred Newman, will bring to 91����Ƶ’s Lehman Auditorium one of the more than one-dozen scores she has written for vintage silent films. At the third festival concert, on Saturday the 17th, the 1914 Mary Pickford feature “Cinderella” will be screened with live accompaniment from the festival orchestra.

An additional highlight on Saturday night will be its excursion into Cuban music. Nafziger, a frequent participant in cultural exchanges with Cuba, will lead the orchestra in La bella cubana, by José Silvestre White, and Volver atras, by SVBF violinist Eleonel Molina.

One of the festival’s other defining characteristics – its eagerness to promote the development of young musicians – will be showcased in a work on the opening-night program, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major. The teenage soloists are Emma Resmini of Fairfax Station, Va., on flute, and harpist Morgan Short, of Roanoke, Va.

Despite their youth, Resmini and Short both have ties to the festival which extend back several summers.

Among the other soloists returning for this year’s SVBF are violist Scott Hosfeld, clarinetist Leslie Nicholas, and bass-baritone Daniel Lichti.

The festival concludes on Sunday, June 18, with a non-sectarian service of worship such as might have been conducted during Bach’s heyday as a church musician in Leipzig, Germany. It will feature the Magnificat in D major – yet another piece brought back from the festival’s first year. In addition to Lichti, soloists include sopranos Veronica Chapman-Smith and Heidi Kurtz, countertenor Joel Ross, and tenor Brian Thorsett. Marvin Mills will be the organist.

The homilist for the Leipzig service will be Isaac Villegas, pastor of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship in North Carolina.

For more information about the festival, including details on the series of free concerts offered weekdays at noon at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Harrisonburg, go to .

The 34-voice choir, directed by Dr. Kenneth Nafziger, professor of music, will sing music from their spring break tour through the Midwest along with “Misa Criolla” a setting of the mass based on Latin American rhythms and instruments by Argentine composer Ariel Ramirez. The program will include a first performance of the revised version of “Songs for the Journey” by the New England composer Kevin Siegfried for choir and small orchestra.

“Songs for the Journey” will be performed in memory of Matthew Garber, 22, a much-loved student leader, musician and 2008 nursing graduate from Elizabethtown, Pa. He was a significant part of Chamber Singers’ history and experience during his years of participation and was an inspiration to many in the choir. Matt drowned on July 1, 2008 during a summer missions trip in Costa Rica. The performance is made possible through a gift from Matt’s parents to the 91����Ƶ Chamber Singers.

Admission to the program is free. However, any donations received will go to the support of HARTS (Harrisonburg & Rockingham Thermal Shelter).  HARTS’ mission is “to provide a warm and safe place to sleep for people why have no other place to stay.” This happens through “engaging the community of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County in partnership to provide shelter, compassionate support and access to services for homeless people.”

A basket for contributions will be located at the doors at the close of the program. Checks can be made out to HARTS.

The Chamber Singers, a select student choir at 91����Ƶ, will present a concert of seasonal music 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, at Park View Mennonite Church, N. College Ave., Harrisonburg.

The 25-member ensemble, directed by Dr. Kenneth Nafziger, professor of music at 91����Ƶ, will perform "Sing a different song!," a collection of Christmas music for choir, soloists, organ, piano, percussion and audience participation.

The group will also sing shape-note hymns and carols from Europe, Mexico, West Indies, Appalachia, Africa, Ireland and the United States.

Admission to the program is free; contributions are welcomed for the 91����Ƶ student scholarship fund.

Dan Gardner, a 1993 graduate of 91����Ƶ and winner of NBC Television’s Today Show “Today’s Superstar” competition, will return to his alma mater to give two concerts during fall homecoming weekend.

Gardner will perform a wide variety of popular music, including original compositions, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 8 – 9, in Lehman Auditorium, and be available to sign CDs after each show. The 91����Ƶ Chamber Singers will join him on some selections.

A resident of Atlanta, Ga., where he taught private voice lessons and at a music school before becoming a full-time recording artist, Gardner received the top award on the Nov. 21, 2002 broadcast of the program in New York City. The process included being chosen from among 4,000 audition tapes, performing as one of six finalists and taking part in three weeks of performances. More than 700,000 votes were submitted on-line throughout the contest.

Born in New York City, the liberal arts major was raised in Goshen, Ind., the youngest of five siblings. At 91����Ƶ, he was a voice student of music professor Kenneth Nafziger and a member of the Chamber Singers, which Dr. Nafziger directs.

“Dan is a remarkable person,” noted Dr. Nafziger. “He came to 91����Ƶ knowing what he wanted to do and never wavered from those intentions. I had never worked for an extended period of time with a singer who wanted to do pop music, so working with him was a real education for me,” he added.

Nafziger noted the “intensity” with which Gardner could communicate a song, whether to an audience of one in a music lesson or to an audience of many – as in his senior recital which packed out Lehman Auditorium.

As Today’s Superstar, Gardner was featured in a live outdoor concert in December 2002 outside NBC’s Studio 1A in Rockefeller Plaza and was awarded a recording session with Warner Brothers Records.

Gardner now has a production company (DG Productions) and a Web site . He still lives in Atlanta, but travels frequently to New York and Los Angeles and gives concerts around the country. He has appeared on national radio, on national television at a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial event and at the Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

His debut album, “More Than Life,” features many songs written or co-written by Gardner. As vocalist, songwriter, performer and producer, Gardner mixes elements of pop, blues, jazz and rock in this varied collection of ballads, high energy and mid-tempo tunes. His first single off the album, “More Than Life,” climbed to No. 12 on the adult contemporary radio charts.

Admission prices vary. Persons are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance by calling the 91����Ƶ box office, (540) 432-4582. Tickets will also be on sale at the door.