Illinois
Pandemic-delayed memorial planned for Jan Bach, prolific composer who taught at NIU
Jan Bach’s father hoped he’d take over the household lumber enterprise. As an alternative, he took to the piano and music after his mom inspired him to be taught to play.
“She needed him to be widespread, and, in fact, she needed him to get invited to events,” mentioned his daughter Daybreak.
Mr. Bach went on to check with composer Aaron Copland on the Tanglewood Music Heart in Massachusetts, performed the French horn in an Military band on the funeral of President John F. Kennedy and have become a famend and prolific composer of complicated music carried out across the globe.
In 1980, his work “The Pupil from Salamanca” gained the $10,000 first prize in a one-act opera competitors by the New York Metropolis Opera, which carried out his piece that 12 months. Soprano Beverly Sills, the corporate’s chief, phoned to congratulate him and inscribed her nickname —“Bubbles” — on a silver bowl she gave him as a present.
A memorial is deliberate on the finish of the month for Mr. Bach, who taught for almost 40 years at Northern Illinois College.
He died of bladder most cancers in 2020 at 82. However the memorial had been delayed because of the pandemic, his daughter mentioned.
He grew up in downstate Forrest, a small farm city the place his father, John Nicholas Bach, ran J.N. Bach & Sons Lumber, and his mom Ann labored half time at a financial institution.
The household worshiped at a strict church.
“No devices had been allowed within the church, solely singing,” his daughter mentioned. “It’s attention-grabbing my dad ended up taking over the horn. And he performed the piano very nicely. He was composing from the age of about 5.”
He went to Forrest-Strawn-Wing Excessive College and the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the place he bought bachelor’s, grasp’s and doctoral levels in music.
A younger Jan Bach along with his French horn.
Within the early Nineteen Sixties, he studied at Tanglewood, the place he was co-winner of the Koussevitzky prize for greatest composition of the summer season. Copland was a decide.
Mr. Bach additionally met one other maestro there, an encounter he described in an interview with radio host Bruce Duffie: “After I met Leonard Bernstein, years in the past at Tanglewood, he mentioned, ‘Oh, you’re Jan Bach.’ I mentioned, ‘How are you aware my title?’ And he mentioned, ‘After I arrived this morning, I used to be wanting on the roster of scholars, and I noticed your title on the high. I believed: God, what a reputation for a musician! So what’s your actual title?’”
“Bach!” younger Jan replied. “What’s yours?”
Mr. Bach did his dissertation on composer Benjamin Britten and was proud that his composition “Eisteddfod” was carried out in Britten’s hometown of Aldeburgh in England in 1979, his daughter mentioned.
In Aldeburgh, he additionally studied with Scottish composer Thea Musgrave.
After the Military, he labored as an teacher on the College of Tampa after which at NIU, the place he taught from 1966 to 2004.
A proficient artist and cartoonist, Jan Bach determined to give attention to music but in addition continued along with his drawings, together with this caricature of the music college at Northern Illinois College within the Nineteen Seventies. He pictured himself because the bearded determine in high row, his head turned to the left, carrying a jacket and turtleneck.
“He appreciated to jot down for devices that don’t normally get to see the highlight,” his daughter mentioned. “He wrote for the euphonium. He wrote a concerto for the viola. He wrote one for the steelpan.”
Mr. Bach was impressed to jot down “Concerto for Steelpan and Orchestra” for Liam Teague when Teague was a pupil steelpan virtuoso at NIU. The steelpan is the nationwide instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, the place Teague, now an NIU professor, is from.
“He was a musical genius,” mentioned Teague, who has carried out the work all over the world. “However he was such a form particular person and tremendous humorous.”
Mr. Bach joked that he accomplished his piece “The Comfortable Prince” because of sweet.
“I had been attempting to kick a cigarette behavior for a very long time, and that was one of many occasions after I stopped smoking and was mainly OD-ing on jellybeans,” he informed Duffie. “I believe that sugar did one thing to me as a result of it’s one of the concerned scores I’ve ever written.”
His works may very well be playful. On the finish of the steelpan concerto, “There’s a type of duel between the steelpan and an instrument referred to as the flexatone,” mentioned Teague, who posted video on YouTube of his 2011 efficiency of the piece with the Taiwan Nationwide Symphony.
The Chicago Each day Information as soon as described Mr. Bach’s output this fashion: “His music tends to go its method awhile alongside harmless neo–classical traces. However from time to time, a contact of poetry or wit or sheer boisterous humor alerts the listener to the actual sophistication and hidden depth of what the composer is doing.”
“He was beneficiant to all of his college students and all who labored with him,” mentioned Jui-Ching Wang, an affiliate music professor at NIU, sharing educating supplies and providing encouragement.
He appreciated to jot down his compositions with expensive Blackwing pencils and take photographs with a 3D digicam. He loved the light humor of Laurel and Hardy and the outdated radio present “Vic and Sade” in addition to TV’s long-running “Gunsmoke.”
Mr. Bach can be survived by his former spouse Dalia, daughter Eva, brother Eric and three grandchildren.
His memorial will probably be held at 1 p.m. April 30 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in DeKalb, with a reception after.
A celebration of his music is deliberate for 7 p.m. Might 1 at Boutell Memorial Live performance Corridor within the NIU Music Constructing, the place the primary Jan Bach Prize in Music Composition is to be awarded to a younger composer.
Teague mentioned he’ll carry out the steelpan concerto that Mr. Bach wrote after listening to him play.