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/

  1. 4d ago

    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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. Aug 5

    Why Bach Is a "Rorschach Test" | BACH 52

    Violinist Owen Dalby (St. Lawrence String Quartet, Stanford artist-in-residence) on why Bach's music works like a Rorschach test — and how it became his spiritual home. Owen Dalby has spent a lifetime leading an extraordinarily multifaceted musical life — performing at the highest levels while pushing the bounds of how classical music relates to community. For much of the last decade he toured the world as a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Before that, he co-founded Decoda, a Carnegie Hall–affiliated collective formed around a single question: how do we make this art as relevant, as meaningful, as helpful to as many people as we can? That question runs through everything else in this episode: his early training with Anne Crowden at Berkeley's Crowden School, where chamber music was treated as a foundation for social-emotional learning; his discovery of baroque instruments and historical performance practice; the St. Matthew Passion, which he calls his "spiritual home" despite not being a believer; and his current work as co-director of Noe Music, the San Francisco chamber series he runs with his wife, violist Meena Bhasin. The aria for this episode is taken from BWV 177 featuring Owen Dalby, violin and Ruckus Early Music, recorded LIVE at Noe Music in San Francisco, CA in May 2022. 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. Jul 29

    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

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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
    13
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 BACH 52
  • Show Website
    BACH 52