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Bach Aria Soloists

SPECTRUM

Friday, May 2, 2025 @ 7 PM

Bach Aria Soloists, hailed for producing “the most surprising and brilliantly innovative collaborations,” [Kansas City Star] delivers their critically acclaimed concert series presenting the genius of Johann Sebastian Bach, his contemporaries, and those he inspired today to our community. The ensemble’s repertoire is adventurous and broad, including chamber music from Renaissance to Contemporary, and vocal arias from multiple genres, from Baroque to new composer commissions. Their signature arrangements can be heard in every concert, making any composition into chamber music.

Bach Aria Soloists was invited to perform in the 20th Anniversary season of the Cayman Arts Festival with trumpeter Rodney Marsalis in 2024. They also traveled to Asia in the summer of 2022 as they were invited as Artists-in-Residence at the Thailand International Composition Festival. BAS gave the world premiere of Narong Prangcharoen’s Reticence for Soprano, Violin, Cello and Harpsichord, dedicated to BAS founder Elizabeth Suh Lane; let a master class with young composition students and performed two full concerts of repertoire from Bach to Prangcharoen. BAS made their Asian debut at the Thailand International Composition Festival in 2016 premiering Prangcharoen’s Dialogue composed for BAS’ 15th Anniversary.

Bach Aria Soloists is thrilled to announce that they will join the roster of artists of Marsalis Mansion Artists! They were the USArtists International grant recipient from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mellon Foundation in both 2022 and 2016. The Missouri Arts Council named BAS The Arts Organization of 2020. In 2022, BAS was selected as a Finalist in the US. State Department’s Cultural and Educational American Music Abroad program.

Bach Aria Soloists was founded by Artistic Director-violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane and includes Grammy-winning soprano Sara Tannehill Anderson and the multi-talented Dr. Elisa Williams Bickers, harpsichord-organ-piano. Collaboration is integral to Bach Aria Soloists’ mission. Artistic partners have included internationally renowned musicians, dancers, scholars, actors, artists, such as Dr. Christoph Wolff; trumpeter Rodney Marsalis; Grammy-winning bandonéonist Héctor Del Curto; Grammy-winning pianist Gustavo Casenave; cellists Matt Haimovitz; saxophonist Bobby Watson; Grammy-winning Kansas City Chorals; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts; Heart of America Shakespeare Festival; the Nelson-Atkins Museum; contemporary dance ensembles Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance, Elizabeth Koeppen from Parsons Dance, and Owen/Cox Dance Group.

Bach Aria Soloists’ new recording La Dolce Sirene has received critical acclaim in the UlS. and Internationally: “…luscious in Monteverdi and resplendent in Handel’s ‘Rejoice greatly’…a magical tour de force.” [Gramophone]

Learn more about each performer below!

Elizabeth Suh Lane

Elizabeth has performed across the globe as a chamber and orchestral musician in the finest concert halls – Carnegie, Suntory, Salzburg Festspiele, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Helzberg, Theatre des Champs Elysee, the Barbican, to name a few. She has concertized throughout the world as a first violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra under directors Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, André Previn, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pierre Boulez, among many others; she toured with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gidon Kremer; and with the Academy of St. Martin-in the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner. She has been invited to perform at numerous international festivals incl: Tanglewood, Britten-Pears, Schleswig–Holstein, Pacific Music, the Carmel Bach Festival. Elizabeth has performed as a substitute with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and served on the faculties of the Snowpond Chamber Music Seminar in Maine and the Brian Lewis Young Artists‘ Program instructing advanced students. She was Artistic Director of the Kansas City String Quartet Program for twelve years leading the national faculty and students to excellence through string quartet preparation, coaching and performance.

Elizabeth is founder-Executive-Artistic Director and violinist of the Bach Aria Soloists. Her leadership has brought world-class collaborations to Kansas City to partner with BAS, incl: the world’s preeminent scholar of Bach Dr. Christoph Wolff; Narong Prangcharoen, whom she commissioned to compose DIALOGUE for BAS’ 15th Anniversary; and Susan Kander who composed Partite Americaine in 2004. Elizabeth invited friend/trumpeter Rodney Marsalis to join BAS for their Evening with Rodney Marsalis; and radio personality-composer Bill McGlaughlin, who presented BAS’ live radio show – Inspired by Bach – broadcast on Kansas Public Radio. McGlaughlin remarked, “Elizabeth is a real virtuoso musician, and what the Bach Aria Soloists are doing is of the highest quality in the most artful manner, the way it should be done.

Elizabeth has vast experience with chamber music performance and coaching throughout her career on two continents. She was featured on International Television Service- KCPT’s Women and Girls Lead film series and has been broadcast on Kansas Public Radio and KCUR on numerous occasions. In addition to the supremely talented women of BAS, she has performed with excellent colleagues Matt Haimovitz, Anna Lim, Judith Busbridge, Jo-Ann Sternberg, Robert Satterlee’s Piano Trio for a series of concerts and master classes in Ann Arbor and Bowling Green; and with the Maia Quartet for their final concerts. Her string quartet was named the Ensemble-in-Residence at Tanglewood in ’88. Elizabeth was invited as a Fellow for four summers to Tanglewood and was the recipient of the Gustav Golden Award. She had the distinct honor of being selected for the orchestra for Leonard Bernstein’s memorial service at St. John the Divine.

Elizabeth fulfills her love of teaching by mentoring a studio of young violinists who are alumni of Harvard, Juilliard, Eastman School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, UCLA, Washington University, Case Western, Stanford, among others. She conducts Orchestral Clinics for thousands of students throughout the metropolitan region via Bach Aria Soloists’ BachReach offering FREE innovative, interactive education to schools and seniors, incl memory care seniors. She was a member of the LSO Education team training teachers/students in schools across Great Britain. The Asian American Chamber of Commerce honored Elizabeth with the Professional Leader of the Year Award for her success and significant contribution to music and education in the community. The Youth Symphony of Kansas City selected Elizabeth for the 2023 Excellence in Music Education Award and the Kansas City Musical Club presented her with the 2024 Annual Award for her outstanding contribution to the cultural life of Kansas City.

Elizabeth was a Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Fellow and Broadus Erle Memorial Scholar – awarded to the most outstanding string player at Yale University where she studied with Syoko Aki and served as Assistant to Baroque violin specialist Jaap Schröder. She was a Chancellor’s Scholar at UMKC where she studied with Tiberius Klausner.

Sarah Tannehill Anderson

Sarah Tannehill Anderson is an extremely versatile musician who excels at opera, oratorio, choral music, contemporary works, and art song. In addition to being soprano of Bach Aria Soloists, she has performed with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Boston Lyric, Opera Omaha, Fort Worth Opera, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In Kansas City, Sarah is a member of the Lyric Arts Trio and former soprano with the Kansas City Chorale with whom she recorded five albums.

Sarah has won two Grammy Awards for her work with the Kansas City Chorale. She is a featured soloist on the Chorale’s recording, Life & Breath – Choral Works By René Clausen, which won the Grammy Award in 2013 for Best Choral Performance. In 2016, Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil won the Grammy for Best Choral Performance. Sarah is nominated for a 2022 Grammy for her work with The Saint Tikhon Choir’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by Benedict Sheehan. She has performed with many other regional ensembles including the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, the New Ear Ensemble, the Kansas City Ballet and the Heartland Men’s Chorus.

Sarah is the founder of Raise Your Voice a digital hub for vocal training, and resides in the Union Hill neighborhood with her husband, baritone and music educator Sam Anderson.

Elisa Williams Bickers

Dr. Elisa Williams Bickers, FAGO, is the harpsichordist, organist, and pianist for the Bach Aria Soloists. She is the associate director of music and principal organist at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas. She performs regularly in recital as a solo organist, harpsichordist, and accompanist, including with the Kansas City Symphony, Te Deum Chamber Choir and the Grammy-winning Kansas City Chorale. She has served on the faculties of the UMKC Conservatory and Washburn University as instructor of organ and harpsichord.

A native of Clinton, Maryland, Dr. Bickers began her organ studies with the Potomac Organ Institute. She has degrees in church music and organ performance from Texas Christian University and the University of Kansas. Her teachers have included Dale Krider, Joseph Butler and Michael Bauer. She was awarded the 2009 Carlin Award for excellence in teaching, the highest honor possible for graduate students at KU. She has competed and won prizes in the William Hall Competition, NYACOP and the International Buxtehude Competition. Most recently, she was awarded the Fellow certificate of the American Guild of Organists, the Guild’s most prestigious certification.

Dr. Bickers guided the installation of Richards, Fowkes & Co. (Opus 22) pipe organ at Village, which is a landmark instrument in this city. She was also the chair for New Music for the 2018 American Guild of Organists National Convention.