BACH 52

Nicholas Phan

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/

  1. Oct 7

    Bach, Faith, and the Future of Classical Music

    Bach, Faith, and the Future of Classical Music with Chad Smith | president & CEO, Boston Symphony Orchestra Last August, the Tanglewood Learning Institute hosted the first live-filmed conversations for BACH 52. The first of these features Chad Smith, President & CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in a wide-ranging conversation about Bach, classical music’s evolving place in contemporary culture, and the role of major artistic institutions as civic and cultural stewards. Bach, Spirituality, and the Concert Hall as Civic Space Our conversation began, quite naturally, with biography. Chad spoke about discovering Bach through singing — first in the church, then in college — and through the cantatas that filled his Sundays at Emmanuel Music in Boston. Listening to him describe those formative experiences — and recalling my earlier BACH 52 conversations with Emmanuel musicians and clergy in Episodes 8, 10, and 11 — I am continually struck by the ripple effects of Emmanuel’s influence on our musical world.That world of devotion, community, and routine artistry left an imprint on him, and it informed the way he now thinks about ritual, faith, and the spaces where we gather to listen. From there, the discussion widened to touch on the concert hall as a kind of secular cathedral, the persistence of spiritual longing in an increasingly secular age, and the ways art can function as a public good. Because this episode was filmed live at Tanglewood, its structure mirrors the event itself, which contained more music than the pre-filmed webisodes normally do. The first aria comes from BWV 7, Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, a cantata written for the Feast of St. John the Baptist. Scored for tenor and two violins, it paints the scene of Christ’s baptism at the River Jordan with striking clarity. Its numerological symmetry and Trinitarian imagery evoke purification and renewal — both liturgical and human. This aria first appeared in Episode 1 of BACH 52, and makes a reprise here as the aria featured in my conversation with Chad. The episode concludes with an aria from BWV 119, Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn, written for the inauguration of the Leipzig town council. BWV 119 looks outward as a blessing for the city and its inhabitants, imagining civic life as something worthy of ceremony, festivity, and song. After a conversation about institutions, public ritual, and the artist as citizen, it felt fitting to close with a work that collapses the distance between sacred space and civic space, reminding us that Bach lived not only in the church but also in the life of a city. ARIAS Wohl dir du Wolk der Linden from Lob sei und Ehr dem höchsten Gut, BWV 119 PERFORMERS Nicholas Phan, tenor Les Délices | Debra Nagy, director   Oboes da caccia: Debra Nagy, Meg Owens   Viola da gamba: Rebecca Landell   Organ: Mark Edwards SOUND (BWV 119 only): Joel Negus | VIDEO (BWV 119 only): Clubsoda Productions with Ken Wendt assisting Des Vaters Stimme ließ sich hören from Christ unser Herr sum Jordan kam, BWV 7 PERFORMERS Ruckus Early Music   Violins: Katie Hyun, Owen Dalby   Viola da gamba: Doug Balliett   Bassoon: Clay Zeller-Townson   Theorbo: Joshua Stauffer   Harpsichord: Elliot Figg SOUND (BWV 7 only): Lolly Lewis | VIDEO (BWV 7 only): Clubsoda Productions This episode was filmed in partnership with Noe Music, Les Délices, and the Tanglewood Learning Institute. 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. Sep 23

    Theology, Music, and Modern Myths | Who Was J.S. Bach Really?

    Theology, Music, and Modern Myths with Michael Marissen | Bach scholar & author of Bach Against Modernity Who was Johann Sebastian Bach really? When we talk about Bach, it’s so easy to slip into big claims — greatest composer ever, universal genius, before and after Bach. And while there’s truth in all of that, this conversation reminded me how much richer the music becomes when we stop trying to make Bach look like us, and instead let him be who he actually was. In 2023, I had the chance to sit down and chat with Michael Marissen, one of the most thoughtful and probing Bach scholars working today, at the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival—an annual festival devoted to the music of Bach that takes place at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio. Michael’s work asks difficult and deeply illuminating questions about Bach’s theology, historical context, and the modern stories we’ve built around his music. In our conversation, we talk about Bach as a profoundly pre-modern thinker, about why joy and sorrow so often coexist in his music, and about the temptation to turn Bach into a kind of personal hero who conveniently reflects our own values. What I found most refreshing is how generous this perspective is — it doesn’t take anything away from the music. If anything, it helps the music feel deeper, stranger, and more alive. ARIA Was unser Gott geschaffen hat from Lob sei und Ehr dem höchsten Gut, BWV 117 PERFORMERS Nicholas Phan, tenor Bach Collegium San Diego | Ruben Valenzuela, director   Oboes: Kathryn Montoya, Stephen Bard   Bassoon: Anna Marsh   Violins: Elizabeth Blumenstock, Janet Strauss   Viola: Aaron Westman   Cello: Alex Greenbaum   Bass: Malachai Bandy   Theorbo: Kevin Payne   Organ: Ruben Valenzuela SOUND (BWV 179 only): Daniel Rumley | VIDEO: Clubsoda Productions This episode was filmed in partnership with Bach Collegium San Diego. 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. Sep 16

    Bach as Connection: Communal Music Making with Kate Sheeran

    BACH AS CONNECTION  COMMUNAL MUSIC MAKING with Kate Sheeran ‍  ‍former executive director, Kaufman Music Center ‍  ‍Dean, Eastman School of Music What if Bach was never intimidating — just music? Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan sits down with Kate Sheeran, Executive Director of New York City's Kaufman Music Center and incoming Dean of the Eastman School of Music, for a wide-ranging conversation about the power of communal music-making, what music education can look like when barriers are removed, and how Bach became the unlikely soundtrack of a teenager's summer camp experience.  Kate traces her relationship with Bach from singing chorales at Kin Haven music camp as a teenager — not knowing they came from cantatas and passions, just knowing they sounded beautiful — to leading one of New York City's most extraordinary music institutions, where over 2,500 students study each year, including one of only 14 high school baroque orchestras in the United States. Their conversation touches on the difference between music being "performed by everyone" versus "for everyone," the way music education develops leadership and collaboration, and why Bach, of all composers, might be the best model for the 21st-century musician.  This episode also features a performance of the tenor aria from Cantata 157, Ich lasse dich nicht — described by Nick as perhaps the most difficult tenor aria Bach ever wrote, spare in orchestration and relentless in its upward reach, depicting a soul grasping desperately for comfort. Full episode details and credits: https://www.bach52.nicholas-phan.com/episodes/ep9 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. Sep 9

    Death, Doubt & the Bach Institute

    with  Pamela Dellal,   Bach Institute Director & Intellectual Resources Curator  This week on BACH 52, Nicholas Phan sits down with Pamela Dellal — alto, master translator, and director of the Bach Institute at Emmanuel Music — for a conversation about death, doubt, and why Bach's cantatas still speak to us today. Pam has translated Bach's cantata texts for Emmanuel Music for decades. She talks about the history of the ensemble under founder Craig Smith, how she became the church's "intellectual resources curator," and her vision for making Bach's music accessible to musicians and non-musicians alike. The conversation turns to two themes that run through nearly all of Bach's music: his fearless meditation on mortality (including the story behind Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's unforgettable final performances of "Ich habe genug") and his surprisingly modern portrayal of doubt. This episode's featured aria is "Komm, du süße Todesstunde" from Cantata 161, composed in Weimar in 1716. 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. Sep 2

    Reginald Mobley on Race, Access & Why Bach Belongs to Everyone

    Reginald Mobley on Race, Access & Why Bach Belongs to Everyone with Reginald Mobley ‍  ‍Grammy-nominated countertenor   programming consultant, Handel & Haydn Society Grammy-nominated countertenor Reginald Mobley joins tenor and host Nick Phan for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to belong in classical music — and who gets to decide.  Reginald grew up in Gainesville, Florida, raised by grandparents who told him that classical music "wasn't for us." Yet a badly-played fugue in sixth-grade band set off an obsession with Bach that has defined his career ever since. In this episode, Reggie traces his path from a church choir to a barbershop quartet gold medal, from a trumpet scholarship he never used to discovering he was a countertenor — and how Bach has been his constant companion through all of it.  Their conversation moves from the personal to the philosophical: why calling Bach's music elitist is itself a form of gatekeeping, what it's like to bring Bach into a small Black Adventist church in the deep South or a jazz club in New Orleans, and how microaggressions in classical spaces compare to the reception he gets outside of them. Reggie also reflects on the parallel between Bach's music and the African American spiritual tradition — both born out of the same era, both using song to process grief, build community, and sustain human dignity.  The aria for this episode is the third movement of BWV 36, Schwingt freudig euch empor, composed for the first Sunday in Advent — a duet for tenor and oboe d'amore whose text meditates on the soul's longing to be united with Christ, like a bride approaching a bridegroom. ARIA Die Liebe zieht mit sanften Schritten from Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36 PERFORMERS Nicholas Phan, tenor Debra Nagy, oboe d’amore Elisabeth Reed, cello  Corey Jamason, organ This episode was filmed in partnership with Les Délices and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. 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. Aug 26

    Bach, Shakespeare & the Sins of the Past

    with Steven Zohn ‍  ‍general editor, American Bach Society   musicologist, Temple University Is it possible to separate great art from the flawed men who made it? In this episode of BACH 52, I sit down with Steven Zohn, General Editor of the American Bach Society and Professor of Musicology at Temple University, to talk about Bach, Shakespeare, and what we owe the canon. Steven and I get into why Bach's music resists becoming a museum piece, the surprising parallels between Bach and Shakespeare as two men who remain fundamentally unknowable to us, and how to teach centuries-old work by canonical white men in a moment that is, rightly, reckoning with the sins of the past. It all lands on the old idiom that gives this episode its name: are we in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Stick around after the conversation for the aria, "Ich eile, die Lehren des Lebens zu hören" from Cantata 148, recorded with violinist Katie Hyun and Ruckus Early Music. This episode was filmed in partnership with Noe Music. 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

  7. Aug 20

    Bach, Community, the International Pride Orchestra

    Bach, Community, the International Pride Orchestra with Michael Roest ‍  ‍founder & director, International Pride Orchestra   former Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, San Francisco Conservatory of Music Nicholas Phan sits down with Michael Roest — former Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and founder of the International Pride Orchestra — to explore what Bach's music has to do with identity, community, and belonging.  Michael shares how music became foundational to his life from fifth grade in Kenosha, Wisconsin, through Oberlin and Juilliard — and how that sense of belonging through music eventually led him to create the IPO, a global ensemble bringing together LGBTQ+ musicians to perform, commission new works, and celebrate queer artistry on a world stage.  Along the way, they dig into what makes Bach's music so singularly adaptable — why it can be played on practically any instrument, why it keeps sounding fresh no matter how many times you've heard the Cello Suites, and why Bach might just be the rare composer who doesn't over-notate, even with so many notes on the page.  The episode closes with an aria from Cantata 90 — a terrifying, virtuosic tenor piece about the end of times, filmed with the SFCM Baroque Ensemble. ARIA Es reißet euch ein schrecklich' Ende from Es reißet euch ein schrecklich' Ende, BWV 90 PERFORMERS SFCM Baroque Ensemble | Elisabeth Reed & Corey Jamason, directors   Violin 1: Carla Moore (leader), Alexandra Santon, Cynthia Black, Eliana Estrada   Violin 2: Pauline Kempf, Annemarie Schubert, Luke Chiang   Viola: Jennifer Redondas, Caitlin Keen   Cello: Octavio Mujica, Hasan Abualhaj   Bass: Farley Pearce   Organ: Yunyi Ji SOUND (BWV 90 only):  Chanho Han & Jason O'Connell | VIDEO (BWV 90 only): Clubsoda Productions with Edgar Garcia assisting | VIDEO (Interview): Nicholas Phan This episode was filmed in partnership with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. 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

  8. Aug 12

    Bach as a Bridge-Builder

    Carla Dirlikov Canales and I have known each other since we were teenagers growing up in the twin towns of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan — we even sang together as fellow voice majors at the University of Michigan. Since then, Carla has built a career turning music into a tool for cultural diplomacy: a State Department cultural exchange mission to Mexico led her to found The Canales Project in 2016, and in 2023 she became the National Endowment for the Arts' first Senior Advisor and Envoy for Cultural Exchange. She's currently a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School. In this episode, Carla and I talk about identity, curiosity, and how Bach — a working musician employed by the city of Leipzig — offers a surprising model for thinking about music's power to build bridges between people and cultures today. Stick around to the end for the aria: the tenor aria "Bleibt, ihr Engel, bleibt bei mir" from Cantata BWV 19, Es erhub sich ein Streit, featuring Dominic Favia on period natural trumpet. NOTE ABOUT THE TRUMPET: Dominic Favia, our trumpet player for this aria, played this on a true period instrument, which is to say that it has no valves and no finger holes. These instruments, which is how trumpets were designed in Bach’s time, are only able to play notes that occur naturally in its own overtone series, which means that some of these notes don’t quite line up in the same ways our ears are accustomed to hearing in our time of equally-tempered modern pianos. This is not a mistake by any means, but just the physics of the instrument and is what we imagine would have been the same sound Bach’s own trumpeters would have made and what Bach himself would have been accustomed to hearing. Learn more about BACH 52 at bach52.nicholas-phan.com. Learn more about Dominic's trumpet at https://www.dominicfavia.com/about-the-natural-trumpet BACH 52 Episode 21 Bach as a Bridge-Builder with Carla Dirlikov Canales,   mezzo-soprano;   founder, The Canales Project  ⁨@thecanalesproject2624⁩   & Nicholas Phan, tenor ARIA  Tenor Aria from Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19 PERFORMERS Nicholas Phan, tenor Dominic Favia, trumpet San Francisco Conservatory of Music Baroque Ensemble   Corey Jamason & Elisabeth Reed, directors 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

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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
    15
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 BACH 52
  • Show Website
    BACH 52

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