The 2024 Five Cities Baroque Festival will close with a performance of the 1724 version of Bach’s titanic St. John Passion to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the work, featuring Mike Williams as the Evangelist and Alan Held as Jesus.

The first Five Cities Baroque Youth Academy will culminate with a concert to kick off closing weekend of the Festival.

Guest Artist Stephen Buzard will return to the Five Cities Baroque Festival to give a recital of organ music at the Chapel of St. John the Divine in Champaign.

Five Cities Baroque Board Member William McClain will give a presentation on the connections between Baroque music and jazz and the legacy that 18th-century music has left through the work of the Black musical community.

Sopranos Katherine Buzard and Andréa Walker and mezzo-sopranos Gabrielle Timofeeva López and Aubrey Hawkinson will present a program of music by Barbara Strozzi and Claudio Monteverdi, accompanied by continuists Max Holman and Amy Catron.

Alan Held will give a vocal masterclass to four young professional singers: Jorie Clark, Emily Wheeler, Adam Miller, and David Gartner.

Lillian Gordis opens the 2024 Five Cities Baroque Festival with a recital of harpsichord music at the Chapel of St. John the Divine in Champaign.

The 2023 Festival will close with a performance of Bach’s Cantata 42 and the North American premiere of Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Litaniae Omnium Sanctorum, ZWV 153. Reception to follow. Admission is free; donations will be accepted.

The Festival Orchestra will gather to give a concert of chamber music, featuring works by Joseph Bologne, Franz Biber, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Arcangelo Corelli, and J.S. Bach, at St. John’s Episcopal Church of Decatur. Reception to follow. Admission is free; donations will be accepted.

Organist Stephen Buzard will open the 2023 Festival with a concert of music by J.S. Bach on the Baroque-style organ at Decatur First United Methodist Church. Reception to follow. Admission is free; donations will be accepted.