A Year of Bach

Guitarist and composer Miles Okazaki has been an important guitarist in the New York jazz scene for over twenty years. His latest album is Boomtown , featuring a large chamber jazz ensemble playing his jagged Americana. Miles is best known for his solo-guitar recording of the complete works of Thelonious Monk, and we discuss the art of rhythmic placement in Bach and Monk. Featured are excerpts of...

Faye Arthurs spent two decades at New York City Ballet dancing Balanchine, Robbins, and Wheeldon. She originated a role in Wheeldon’s Scenes de Ballet while still a student at SAB, and she danced Robbins’ Goldberg Variations . She now writes dance criticism for Fjord Review and Air Mail, and does archival work for the George Balanchine Foundation. We talk about how ballet dancers count from the st...

Lillian Gordis is a Franco-American harpsichordist born in Berkeley, California, and based in Paris. Her latest album is J.S. Bach: Partita No. 6, English Suite & Preludes and Fugues , released in 2026 on the French label Artalinna, and it’s one of my favorite records of the year. Listen on Apple Music | Spotify In this episode, Lillian talks about her approach to phrasing on the harpsichord: arti...

In this episode of A Year of Bach , Evan talks with keyboardist Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya about her new harpsichord album Transformations , which explores Bach’s adaptations of works by composers including Marcello and Vivaldi. The conversation ranges from Bach as arranger to the expressive possibilities of the harpsichord, the freedom and discipline of interpretation, tempo choices, practice, and...

What a pleasure to speak to guitar hero Scott Tennant about playing and teaching Bach. We talked about his early days with the instrument, how he became a nylon pumper, and how strange it is that most of us guitarists love the Spanish classics alongside the adaptations of the German master. Here are the albums mentioned in the podcast: John Williams, El Diablo Suelto, Guitar Music of Venezuela: Ap...

A conversation with Erik Hall, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and one of the most compelling interpreters of the minimalist canon. We talk about the surprising resonances between J.S. Bach and composers like Steve Reich, Charlemagne Palestine, Simeon ten Holt, and Philip Glass. They discuss Hall’s acclaimed trilogy of solo overdubbed reinterpretations, his upcoming ensemble recording of Canto...

Violist and Author Edward Klorman discusses his new book, Bach: The Cello Suites, and adds commentary at the keyboard. Edward's website: http://Edwardklorman.com/ A Year of Bach Substack: https://yearofbach.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yearofbach.substack.com

Historian Richard Tedlow joins me to ask what made Bach charismatic in his own time and ours. He also argues that no matter the political situation, “Bach’s music is going to exist as long as the human race exists and can’t be taken away.” Along the way we consider the charisma of Bernstein, Gould, Clinton, Hitler, and Trump. Here’s Richard’s Substack . Playlists of works referenced in this episod...

As Commissioner of the FCC during the Clinton administration, Reed Hundt helped shape the modern internet. We speak about his attending the first Beatles concert in the USA (with his friend Al Gore), and the democratization of publishing and broadcasting wrought by the internet. Reed had many questions for me about Bach and my listening, so this is an episode to hear me talk more than I typically...

I’ve listened to Tyler Cowen talk for hundreds of hours about economics, music, history, art, travel, and regional cuisine, so meeting him on Zoom felt a little like stepping through The Purple Rose of Cairo . My composure mostly held, and it was a pleasure to trade favorite recordings, speculate on Bach’s motivations, and wrestle with uneasy feelings while enjoying recordings from wartime Germany...

Episode 2 of A Year of Bach Podcast features my conversation with the great classical guitarist Jason Vieaux . We talked about the pleasures and sorrows of adapting Bach for guitar, how not to play too big in a recording studio, and the pleasures of live performance. Jason is hosting a guitar retreat for students of all levels in Benicia, California from October 10 - 12, 2025 — learn more about it...

Episode 1 of the Year of Bach Podcast features Henry Oliver, author of the Substack The Common Reader, and the excellent book Second Act, a study of late bloomers in business and the arts. Our open-ended conversation touches on Bach, Shakespeare, late blooming, and the pleasures and problems of Glenn Gould. Henry describes the “expectation of astonishment” in music and literature, and names his fa...