Eisenach, a small medieval town, offers participants a chance to explore Bach’s birthplace. The Wartburg castle, where the Elector of Saxony gave Luther refuge while he translated the New Testament, still stands high above the town.

Weeks two and three will be spent in Leipzig, where Bach lived the last decades of his life working as the choirmaster for the St. Thomas Church. Bach wrote the great part of his vast musical output as a church musician rather than as a court composer. Sunday services still feature Bach’s cantatas, heard in their original religious context.

There was probably no more dramatic moment in Bach’s life than his visit as an elderly man to the court of Frederick II of Prussia at Potsdam in 1747. The Baroque craft of musicianship was challenged by the new musical order of the galant, promoted by Frederick and realized by Bach’s own son, C. P. E. Bach, Frederick’s chief court musician. Though Bach triumphantly responded to Frederick’s challenge, as is clear in retrospect, at no other moment do we see the two different—often opposing—worldviews so explicitly stated.

Co-Directors: Hilde Binford (Associate Professor, Moravian College) and Allen Viehmeyer (Professor Emeritus, Youngstown State University; Associate Director for Research, Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center)
Faculty: Drs. Michael Marissen, Peter Wollny, and George Stauffer.

For information, please go to www.bachforteachers.org. Applications must be postmarked no later than March 2, 2010. Each Institute member will receive a stipend of $3,300 to help cover transportation, living expenses, and books/scores.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this announcement do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.