Sing Some Bach—A Choral Pop-up!
Sing some Bach—A Choral Pop-up!
Parish Hall, First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto (1140 Cowper Street)
Saturday, October 31, 2026, 1–3 PM
$35, $5 for printed packet (optional)
Join us on Reformation Day 2026 for an afternoon of singing Bach!
Conductors Derek Tam (SFEMS Executive & Artistic Director) and Nate Widelitz (California Bach Society) will lead you through a no-pressure reading of favorite chorales, as well as selections from BWV 177 (Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ) and the motet BWV 229 (Komm, Jesu, komm). The workshop will be accompanied by Yuko Tanaka.
Print your own scores (a link will be provided before the session), or purchase a printed copy to be given to you at the session.
This is a collaboration with the California Bach Society.
Holding degrees from USC (BM, Vocal Arts) and Yale University (MM and DMA, Choral Conducting), Nate Widelitz has sung under the batons of Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Gustavo Dudamel and collaborated with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras and the Cleveland Orchestra. A Fulbright Scholar to Bulgaria, he has earned credits on PBS, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, and in numerous films.
Between 2016 and 2020, Nate concluded successful tenures as a tenor with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Assistant Conductor of Pacific Chorale. Between 2020 and 2024, he completed his DMA coursework, was appointed Associate Director of Choral Activities at Millikin University, and founded the Five Cities Baroque Festival in Central Illinois. In 2025, Nate completed his DMA degree, relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, and began his tenures as Artistic Director of both the California Bach Society and the Stockton Chorale.
Praised not only for his "deft" conducting (San Francisco Chronicle) but also as a "a master of [the harpsichord]" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and "the fortepianist of the beguiling fingers" (Bloomington Herald-Times), Derek Tam appears regularly throughout the Bay Area and beyond as a conductor and historical keyboardist.
He is the executive & artistic director of the San Francisco Early Music Society, a major advocate for early music in the United States, and serves as the artistic director of the biennial Berkeley Festival & Exhibition, an internationally-renowned celebration of early music.
Tam is the most recent past president of the board of Early Music America, a national organization dedicated to strengthening historical performance.