BACH 52

Nicholas Phan
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Music

Is Johann Sebastian Bach's music really for everyone? BACH 52 is a web series and podcast hosted by Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan, exploring that question one cantata at a time. Each episode pairs a performance of a Bach aria with a conversation between Nick and a guest from the worlds of music, medicine, theology, education, and beyond — people who bring unexpected perspectives to some of the most profound music ever written. Bach composed over 200 sacred cantatas for the Lutheran church. BACH 52 is on a journey through that music — asking what this deeply Christian music means for believers and non-believers alike, and why it continues to resonate across cultures, faiths, and centuries. Guests have included musicians, conductors, physicians, educators, clergy, and industry leaders — all united by a lifelong relationship with Bach's music and a willingness to explore what it means for the world we live in today. Start anywhere — every episode stands alone. Learn more: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    For Everyone Who Wants It

    with Ellen Exner ‍  ‍doctor of musicology   former Vice-President, American Bach Society Is Bach's music really for everyone? Musicologist Ellen Exner — vice president of the American Bach Society and a student of Christoph Wolff at Harvard — argues it isn't, and that the honest answer is more interesting than the comforting one.  Recorded in Philadelphia while I was performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, our conversation traces how Bach's sacred vocal music went nearly forgotten for fifty years after his death, only re-entering the concert world through Mendelssohn's Berlin revival of the St. Matthew Passion and the slow, complicated process of divorcing these cantatas from the Lutheran liturgy they were written for. We talk about canon, curriculum, and who gets to decide what belongs in it; what it means to perform theology you don't personally believe; and why Bach never imagined his music traveling beyond the small Leipzig world he wrote it for — let alone into a Hong Kong concert hall centuries later. Ellen's answer to the episode's central question — "Bach is for everybody who wants it" — reframes the whole project. The episode closes with the aria "Und du von Not erhörte Kreatur" from Cantata BWV 121, Christum wir sollen loben schon, written for the second day of Christmas 1724. Scored for tenor and oboe d'amore, it turns the shepherds' encounter with the infant Christ into a meditation on scale — the vast creator made small and pitiable to save the flesh through flesh. It's a fitting close to a conversation about music built for one specific time, place, and purpose that somehow keeps finding new listeners who want it. Full episode credits, transcript, and video can be found at: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/episodes/ep3 This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation to support the continuation of this project please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects

  2. Jul 22

    Why Bach's Music Touches Everyone – Even If You're Not Religious

    Is the music of Bach for everyone? In Episode 2 of BACH 52, I sit down with oboist and artistic director Debra Nagy to explore this question through the lens of historical performance, personal belief, and the universal human emotions that Bach's music somehow captures across centuries and cultures. Debra is the artistic director of Les Délices and one of the most thoughtful advocates for baroque music I know. Raised in the conservative Jewish tradition and now identifying as culturally Jewish and agnostic, she shares something deeply personal with me: how Bach's profoundly Christian music still resonates with her experience of humanity, grief, loss, and connection. We talk about why the St. Matthew Passion moves non-believers to tears, how baroque instruments create colors and emotions that modern instruments simply can't access, and what it means to find your life's calling through the intimate dialogue between voice and period instruments. We also explore the fascinating world of the baroque oboe and oboe d'amore, instruments that Debra describes as having "more color, more humanity, more emotion" than their modern counterparts. You'll hear the difference in our featured performance of BWV 166 "Ich will an den Himmel denken," a rarely-heard aria that showcases exactly why these historical instruments matter so much. This conversation is about more than just music. It's about how Bach builds community across time, how his cantatas speak to our deepest experiences of mortality and love, and why engaging with this music on its own terms opens up something profound and universal. Watch the episode and see full episode credits at https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/episodes/ep2 This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation to support the continuation of this project please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects

  3. Jul 15

    Can Singing Unite Us?

    On bringing people together from three states and 92 zip codes through music with Matthew Swanson | director of choruses, Cincinnati May Festival Matthew Swanson has spent the last several years working with one of the great American choral institutions: the Cincinnati May Festival, the oldest choral festival in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1873 by a community that decided singing together was worth building an entire tradition around. After working with the May Festival in various capacities for many years, he took over as Director of Choruses in 2024, and now serves as Artistic Head of the organization, overseeing a number of choruses, for singers of all levels and ages, as well as conducting the organization’s flagship choir, the May Festival Chorus, the official chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops orchestras. Nick sat down with him this past May, right in the middle of a week where they were on stage together performing Stravinsky and Orff — music that, on the surface, seems about as far from Bach as one can get, even though both composers clearly owe a great debt to Bach, like most Western classical composers. The May Festival Chorus draws its singers from three different states and 92 different zip codes — a genuinely wide cross-section of a region that is deeply politically purple, not red or blue. Rather than treating that diversity of belief as something to work around, Matthew talked about it as part of the point: a room full of people who likely disagree with each other on a variety of political and religious touchpoints, choosing every Tuesday night to arrive at the same time, the same pitch, the same vowel, in pursuit of something beautiful that none of them could make alone. It’s a small, weekly act of common purpose in an era where that kind of communal activity seems to be getting harder to find — and it illuminates another layer to our central question: is Bach’s music, or any music this demanding, actually for everyone? The episode closes with the tenor aria Was willst du dich, mein Geist, entsetzen from Bach's Cantata BWV 8, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben. Performed by Nicholas Phan, tenor; Debra Nagy, oboe; Corey Jamason, organ; and Elisabeth Reed, cello. Watch the episode and see full episode credits at https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/episodes/ep19 This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation to support the continuation of this project please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects

  4. Jul 7

    Bach, Faith & Radical Welcome with Reverend Pamela Werntz

    How Sacred Music Holds Space for Everyone with Reverend Pamela Werntz | rector, Emmanuel Church Is Bach's sacred music only for believers?  Reverend Pamela Werntz, Rector of Boston's Emmanuel Church, thinks otherwise. In this episode of BACH 52, she shares how Bach's cantatas create space for an extraordinarily diverse community — from musicians and scholars to people sleeping in the church garden — and why that radical welcome is at the heart of what this music can do.  Emmanuel Music has performed Bach cantatas in their liturgical context for over 50 years. Their Bach Institute brings emerging professional artists to study this music not just as performance, but as living spiritual practice. The aria for this episode is Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe from Cantata BWV 156, recorded with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Baroque Ensemble, directed by Elisabeth Reed and Corey Jamason, with special guest SFCM soprano Chea Kang. Watch the episode and see full episode credits at https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/episodes/ep8 This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation to support the continuation of this project please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects

  5. Jul 7

    Get Off My Lawn! with pianist Jeremy Denk

    Was Bach A Radical Conservative? with Jeremy Denk | pianist & author Pianist and author Jeremy Denk joins Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan for a wide-ranging conversation about Johann Sebastian Bach — why his music feels both ancient and startlingly modern, why younger generations are drawn to him more than ever, and what it means that Bach was, in Jeremy's words, a true "get off my lawn" kind of composer: working stubbornly against the fashions of his time while somehow pointing toward the future.  Along the way, Jeremy and Nick explore the interpretive freedom hidden inside Bach's spare notation, the "hidden drum track" that animates even his most contrapuntal writing, and why the Goldberg Variations changed Jeremy's technique, his musical thinking, and his life. They also touch on Jeremy's memoir Every Good Boy Does Fine, which includes an unexpectedly illuminating chapter connecting Bach's harmonic tension to… well, you'll have to listen.  The aria for this episode is from Cantata 171, Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm (God, just as your name, so shall your praise be), likely premiered on New Year's Day, 1729 — performed with Ruckus Early Music recorded live at Noe Music in San Francisco, CA in May 2022. Full episode credits, transcript, and video can be found at: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/  This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation to support the continuation of this project please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects

  6. Jul 7

    Is Bach's Music Really for Everyone? An Introduction

    Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan introduces BACH 52 and the question at its heart: Is Johann Sebastian Bach's music really for everyone? Nick shares his own journey with Bach — from childhood violin lessons to a 20-year career singing this music on stages from Leipzig to Lincoln Center — and the personal reckoning that sparked this project. As a gay biracial singer navigating the classical music world, he explores the tension between an art form that has the power to transform lives and institutions that have historically excluded the very people that art could serve. This episode features the tenor recitative and aria from Cantata BWV 7, performed with Ruckus Early Music recorded live at Noe Music in San Francisco, CA in May 2022. Full episode credits, transcript, and video can be found at: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/  This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To find our more information and to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation to support the continuation of this project please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/nicholas-phan-recording-projects

  • 6 Episodes

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Is Johann Sebastian Bach's music really for everyone? BACH 52 is a web series and podcast hosted by Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan, exploring that question one cantata at a time. Each episode pairs a performance of a Bach aria with a conversation between Nick and a guest from the worlds of music, medicine, theology, education, and beyond — people who bring unexpected perspectives to some of the most profound music ever written. Bach composed over 200 sacred cantatas for the Lutheran church. BACH 52 is on a journey through that music — asking what this deeply Christian music means for believers and non-believers alike, and why it continues to resonate across cultures, faiths, and centuries. Guests have included musicians, conductors, physicians, educators, clergy, and industry leaders — all united by a lifelong relationship with Bach's music and a willingness to explore what it means for the world we live in today. Start anywhere — every episode stands alone. Learn more: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/

Information

  • Creator
    Nicholas Phan
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 BACH 52
  • Show Website
    BACH 52