For the Bach Marathon, Ken-David Masur imports a Leipzig holiday tradition

For a new twist on the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s holiday tradition, Principal Conductor Ken-David Masur is going back to his own childhood.

For the past decade or more, the Civic Orchestra has presented a Bach marathon in December, taking the Baroque master’s six Brandenburg concertos around the city to perform in schools, nursing homes and other community venues before culminating in an evening concert at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. But this year, the Chicago Symphony Chorus will join the group on Dec. 4 to perform two of Bach’s cantatas written for the Advent season. 

The Civic Orchestra presents a regular schedule of performances for full orchestra at Symphony Center, but for most of its history, it has not had an opportunity to perform choral works.

Masur has been suggesting a collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Chorus for several years, but “we had to get through COVID first,” he said. “The intent was always there.”

Filling that gap in his musicians’ experience also dovetails with Masur’s background. As a child, he sang in the children’s choir of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, where his father, Kurt Masur, was music director. And as a Leipzig resident, he often visited St. Thomas’ Church, or the Thomaskirche, where Bach worked for the last 27 years of his life and wrote most of his sacred music.

Masur already had a history with top-level training orchestras at Tanglewood and Juilliard before he took the leadership of the Civic Orchestra in 2019. Coincidentally, in the same season, he became music director of the Milwaukee Symphony, 90 miles north. “It was a wonderful opportunity to be nearby and to join a wonderful organization that works with the next generation of young musicians,” he said. “Almost every orchestra I’ve been to, someone says, ‘I’m a former Civic member.’ ”

This year marks the 300th anniversary of Bach’s first year-long cycle of cantatas for Sunday worship in the Thomaskirche, and Masur has deliberately programmed two of the Advent cantatas for the Dec. 4 concert.

The Bach ensembles are small enough that they don’t need a conductor, but in past years, Masur has coached them before they take their music out to locations in the city. The musicians use modern instruments, but he encourages them to experiment with Baroque style. “If you’re holding a Baroque bow, the weight is distributed differently and the bow grips differently,” he said. “I encourage them to explore, what is the difference?”

And when the Civic Orchestra performs with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, Masur will be telling his musicians to “adjust to the singing. We have to breathe together, and the orchestra has to be mindful of how the chorus reacts.” Bach added some extra wind and brass parts to his Advent cantatas, which will be a chance for some more Civic Orchestra musicians to participate, but breathing together is also a skill that professional string players need to learn.

Along with their programs, the audience will receive the music for the final chorale of the cantatas and be encouraged to join in — just as the congregation in Leipzig would, in Bach’s time and in Masur’s.

“I grew up going to sing-along concerts at St. Thomas,” Masur said. “All of these cantatas are so familiar to me. They’re part of the Christmas season.”