Camerata Pacifica is Bach

Old and New Worlds were in the spotlight when Camerata Pacifica continued its 34th season with From Bach to Bolivia, the first of the programs in its Baroque series at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall.

Featuring period instruments and curated by acclaimed flutist Emi Ferguson, the repertoire included five seminal Bach chamber works.

They were set against six anonymous chamber works composed in the same area in Bolivia, which were rediscovered in the past 20 years in the Chiquitos Music Archives housed in a Bolivian Jesuit mission church and compiled by Piotr Nawrot.

Bridging Bach’s masterworks and the anonymous works was “La Follia” by Domenico Zipoli, an Italian composer who moved to Cordoba in Spanish Colonial America – now Argentina – in 1717 where he served as music director for the local Jesuit church.

Adding luster to the eclectic program were violin virtuoso Katie Hyun and Mikael Darmanie, a cross-genre pianist noted for championing music of the African diaspora.

Ferguson, who was awarded the 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, joined them for the highly entertaining performance.