learning the role of evangelist: a rite of passage

By James Reese, Tenor
ahead of his debut as Evangelist in our New Year's Eve performance of J.S. Bach Christmas Oratorio

ABOUT JAMES:
Praised for his “dazzling clarity of tone and eloquence of phrasing”, James Reese is an avid ensemble, chamber, and solo musician. He currently studies with James Taylor at Yale University's Institute of Sacred Music as a member of the Voxtet. James frequently works with such prominent local and nationally nationally renowned vocal ensembles as The Crossing (Grammy 2016 Nominee), Chicago Bach Project, The Thirteen, Ampersand, and Music of the Baroque. An advocate for new music, James is a founding member of Philadelphia vocal sextet Variant 6. He has premiered works by Ted Hearne, John Luther Adams, Judd Greenstein, Joel Puckett, Gabriel Jackson, and others. James is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he studied with Kurt R. Hansen, Alan Darling, and Donald Nally. Learn more at jamesreesemusic.com.

This New Years’ Eve, I have the honor of performing the evangelist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Choral Arts Philadelphia, under the direction of Matthew Glandorf. I am thrilled to take on this role, and I am grateful to Matt and Choral Arts for this opportunity. This will be my first performance of one of the crown jewels of tenor repertoire.

For a young tenor, learning the evangelist roles from Bach’s major vocal works is a rite of passage. The endeavor of preparing an evangelist role is one full of tradition and lineage. Both of my teachers, James Taylor and Kurt Hansen, are first-rate evangelists and storytellers. When we consider their teachers, then those teachers’ teachers, and so on, we come to a startling realization: only about six generations of evangelists separate today’s young singers from Bach’s own original tenor. The result is a sort of oral history passed down from Bach’s time which still informs how we portray the evangelist today.

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