Artistry with Passion
As Easter approaches, many traditions will ensue over the coming days — and as a part of this year’s Sacred Arts Series at St. Joseph Cathedral, an intrepid group of Augustana University students and faculty will join forces with professional artists from coast to coast, engaging in a particularly seasonally appropriate piece — Bach’s St. John Passion.
Dr. David Chin (Photo Credit: Matthew Tylukti)
Dr. David Chin, conductor of Augustana’s Bach Collegium, will be at the podium for the event, which will take place Tuesday, April 15, at the cathedral with a group including revered and Grammy-nominated artists alongside 20+ student members of the Augustana Choir.
“Bach is difficult,” he said. “So people usually have the fear and hate of Bach before they fall in love with it. And after a year you see that they have not only grown musically, but they can read the music more efficiently, more professionally, more quickly. And you also see how they have grown as humans because it takes a lot of perseverance and patience.
“You learn a lot of humanistic lessons from singing Bach. And I encourage my students, reminding them that they are doing something that is greater than themselves. Together you are achieving a masterpiece, which was written 300 years ago. The fact that we are able to fellowship with Bach across time and space through music is quite extraordinary. And I think obviously working alongside professionals is also a very valuable experience that you don't get in just every school.”
Established in 2024, the Bach Collegium ensemble is “dedicated to historically informed performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s work, uniting outstanding student musicians with distinguished faculty and professional artists.”
Chin’s affinity for this style of composition goes back to his first dalliances with Bach during his studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. Growing up Lutheran in Malaysia, his exposure to this repertoire didn’t come until his post-secondary studies.
“You look at Bach’s portrait — a white dude with wigs and looking a little bit serious,” he said, “and your first response is, ‘I want nothing to do with this guy. He has nothing to do with me.’
He noted that most people’s entry point for Bach’s music is likely his more popularized works, such as “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” a stalwart of vampire and horror films in pop culture. It was his experience studying conducting that brought him to this master of the genre in earnest.
The Augustana Bach Collegium performs in fall 2024 at the Chapel of Reconciliation on campus. (Photo Credit: Libby Breckon)
“The impression that people get about his work is that it’s mathematical, strict, non-expressive, square,” Chin said. “In the last semester of my graduate study at Eastman, my professor suddenly said, ‘Well, you have nothing to conduct this semester and you're graduating. Why not put together a project? Do Bach.’ I was a young conductor, and wanted to do anything I could, take any opportunity to conduct to build my résumé.”
And in the decade-plus since, Chin’s fondness for the composer has grown exponentially, well beyond the stuffy first impressions.
“He combines philosophy, humanity and theology with the art of music; he makes these things comes alive and it becomes so three-dimensional,” he said. “As I grow older, I find myself loving to think about modern matters of life. A passion story always take you from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from sadness to joy. It says that while you have to go through this pain and doubt, the light is waiting for you. And the passion is basically a big cantata to take you through and help you reflect.
“It's not only making music, but you are living the music. You are appreciating music from your own life experience. And that's also what I'm trying to share with my students.”
This particular passion piece is broken down into three elements, according to the Augustana visiting professor — the book of John, chapters 18 and 19, from the bible; poetry that reflects the story being seen from the outside; and congregational chorale, a component that Chin says is at the heart of Lutheran worship and hymns.
Dr. David Chin conducts at Bachfest Malaysia, for which he is the artist director and founder. (Submitted Photo)
“What is so special about St. John Passion compared to the St. Matthew Passion is there are five versions of St. John Passion. Bach kept going back to it and revising it. So 1724 was the premiere, and you have a 1725 version. And then in the 1730s there are several versions — maybe also in the early 1740s, which means he really cared about this work. It meant a lot to him that he would want to constantly improve it.”
This idea of layered work in music bears out in the way in which this piece unfolds when it’s performed. It’s a piece that holds constant surprises from moment one. That’s a hallmark that Chin appreciates and hopes to pass on to his students through collaborating on the piece.
“That's what I love about Bach. There are so many layers,” he said. “And for students who are 19, 20 years old to experience this… I wish I had this experience. Half of our members are not music majors, but they are singing. I think this could only happen in the Midwest because the choral culture is so strong here.
“These students are finding this fulfillment, I think, not from my affirmation. They find it fulfilling because they realize that they’re actually achieving something that is so difficult. I say to them, ‘You go to Europe, you go to the Vatican, you look at Michelangelo, you look at all these masterpieces by Van Gogh in museums — but you can only participate by observing. When it comes to the great art of music, like Bach, you have the opportunity to remake the art and make it come alive. You can't truly repaint the Mona Lisa, but you can always make Bach come alive again. That is so special.”
Augustana University’s Bach Collegium will present St. John Passion at St. Joseph Cathedral in downtown Sioux Falls Tuesday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. For more information on the performance, go to augie.edu/thepassion.