Round two of the Portland Bach Experience begins Friday, when artistic director Emily Isaacson engages a trio of trumpets and full orchestra for Bach’s grand Orchestral Suite No. 3 and “Magnificat,” perhaps the Baroque composer’s most popular vocal works.
It’s an all-spring Bach, with two major Bach festivals in Portland, and one of them – the Portland Bach Experience, as visioned by Isaacson – has two components. The first occurred in May, and the second round begins this week, with concerts, formal and informal, across the city. Isaacson sees the festival as a celebration of the music of the Baroque era in traditional and progressive formats, to help listeners “bridge the musical traditions of the past with the experience of the 21st century.”