White Light Festival 2011, October 20–November 16. Sponsored by Time Warner Foundation.

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Passio Compassio

J.S. Bach and Sufi Mysticism

Saturday, November 19 at 7:30

Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater
Broadway at 65th Street

Ensemble Sarband
Modern String Quartet
Vocanima Köln
whirling dervishes from Istanbul

Vladimir Ivanoff, music director

Program Notes

Western and Middle Eastern musicians come together with the music of Bach in this rapturous close to the second White Light Festival. Ensemble Sarband, a group long dedicated to musically bridging East and West, joins a choir, saxophonists, and a string quartet in Arabic and jazz arrangements of Bach’s Passions, combining them with early Christian chant. This extraordinary cultural cooperation is framed by the meditative dance ritual of Sufi whirling dervishes from Turkey’s Mevlevi Order. Art transcends hate: passio becomes compassio.

“Touching the bounds of ecstasy.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Pre-performance discussion with Vladimir Ivanoff and John Schaefer at 6:15 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

Also hear Ensemble Sarband in a Late-Night Elegy on November 18.

Please note: Performances begin promptly at their scheduled times.
There is no late seating.

This performance is approximately two hours and 15 minutes long, with one intermission.

This performance will be followed by a White Light Lounge.


BACH (arr. Ivanoff): Erbarme dich ("Have mercy")