Helmuth Rilling: Expressions and Experience

May 29, 2013 to July 14, 2013

The 2013 Oregon Bach Festival celebrates Helmuth Rilling’s 80th birthday and honors his 44th and concluding season as artistic director with a special installation of images by Eugene photographers Warren Morgan, Juretta Nidever, Jon Meyers, and others aims to capture the artistry, friendship, and humanity the community has enjoyed with this humble yet influential leader. Rilling cofounded the Oregon Bach Festival in 1970 with Royce Saltzman of the UO music faculty. The choral director from Stuttgart, Germany was only then emerging as a sensitive yet wholly devoted interpreter of Bach’s music. The Festival’s success grew in lockstep with Rilling’s worldwide musical accomplishments, including being the first German conductor to lead the Israeli Philharmonic in that country, conducting musical portions of Germany’s official reunification ceremonies in 1990, and appearing as guest conductor with the great orchestras of New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Berlin, Toronto, Chicago, and Tokyo. But it has been both Rilling’s deeply personal understanding of J.S. Bach and his ability to illuminate those insights that have endeared him to audiences, donors, and the entire community.