The Bach Society presents its new ABC Series—All of Bach’s Chamber works, with the mission of performing the chamber music of J.S. Bach and those he influenced. These concerts will be approximately one hour in length, no intermission, and will have a post-concert reception where you can enjoy light snacks, refreshments, and meeting the musicians.

Organ Recital

Influencers, In-Crowds, Interpretations

What were the forces and contexts that drove the creation of J. S. Bach’s magnificent output of organ music? How has our approach to performing Bach’s organ music changed in the last century? In this program, Dr. Dean Billmeyer will explore some of Bach’s most resplendent organ pieces with a window on these topics.

This event is part of the 2025-26 Full Season Subscription.

Award-winning organist and harpsichordist Dean Billmeyer is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Minnesota, where he served on the faculty for 41 years. He also taught

thoroughbass and counterpoint through the School of Music’s Theory Division and oversaw the restoration of Northrop Auditorium’s historic 1932 Æolian-Skinner organ. A Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, he was elected to the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 2018. Billmeyer’s understanding of Bach's music was profoundly influenced through his contact as a Fulbright scholar with the Romanian-born organist, composer, and conductor Michael Radulescu (1943-2023). Radulescu himself was a protégé of the famous Bach interpreter Anton Heiller, one of the most influential organists in Europe and America in the mid-20th century.

Billmeyer’s Double CD recording “Straube Plays Bach” is the only commercially available recording of nine major Preludes and Fugues and G Minor Fantasia and Fugue on early 20th century German tubular-pneumatic action organs using the idiosyncratic, hyper-Romantic 1913 edition of Karl Straube, the famous organist and cantor of the Leipzig St. Thomas Church. The recording, released by Rondeau Production of Leipzig in 2018, was nominated for the “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik” as one of the best classical recordings in Germany in that year. Billmeyer’s activities now include performing with the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as serving Organist-in-Residence at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in St. Paul.

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