Image courtesy of Washington Bach Consort
double bassist Nina Bernat explores the expressive range of Bach’s solo cello and violin suites in a concert coming up in Alexandria.
The Washington Bach Consort will present its Fall 2025 Chamber Series, featuring masterful performances of rare and beloved baroque works.
This season, audiences can experience these programs both in Washington, DC and at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Old Town Alexandria, highlighting the Consort’s commitment to bringing exceptional period-instrument performances to the broader DC metropolitan area.
Here's a look at the Alexandria concerts:
Nina Bernat: Double Bass
Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025 | 7 p.m. – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria
Winner of numerous awards, double bassist Nina Bernat explores the expressive range of Bach’s solo cello and violin suites, transcribed for her instrument, with elegance and virtuosity.
Photo courtesy of Washington Bach Consort
Stephen Moran brings to life unaccompanied works for the viol in an upcoming appearance in Alexandria.
Chelys: The Voice of the Viol
Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 | 7 p.m. – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria
Stephen Moran Violist da gamba Stephen Moran brings to life unaccompanied works for the viol by Sainte-Colombe le Fils, Marin Marais, and Johannes Schenck, concluding with Moran’s own transcription of J.S. Bach’s Violin Partita No. 1, BWV 1002.
Image courtesy of Washington Bach Consort
Orlando Gibbons
The Cryes of London: Gibbons 400
Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025 | 7 p.m. – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria
A very special tribute to Orlando Gibbons on the 400th anniversary of his death, featuring consorts of voices and viols in masterworks of the English Renaissance.
Tickets and Information
Tickets for Alexandria performances are now on sale. For more information about individual concerts and season subscriptions, visit bachconsort.org or contact the Washington Bach Consort at 202.429.2121.
Founded in 1977 by the late Dr. J. Reilly Lewis, and since 2018 headed by Dr. Dana Marsh, the Washington Bach Consort is a nationally preeminent vocal and period-instrument ensemble based in Washington, DC.
While the group is especially renowned for its historically informed performances of 18th-century music on period instruments, the entire breadth of its offerings spans the 14th to the 19th centuries. The Consort has also made regular appearances alongside prestigious groups such as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Post-Classical Ensemble, Washington Performing Arts, and the Washington Cathedral Choral Society. In the field of early music especially, the Washington Post hailed the group as one that “could go head-to-head with period ensembles anywhere.
In May 2019, the Council of the District of Columbia honored the Washington Bach Consort in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the group’s free classical-music performances through the popular Noontime Cantata Series. Recordings and printed programs of these performances are now archived in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.
The Council’s 2019 proclamation acknowledged the Consort’s commitment to enriching the lives of audiences through making Bach’s music accessible to the widest possible range of listeners. Emphasizing the transformative power of music, all educational outreach programs (reaching 3,000 D.C. public school students) are given free of charge.
The impact has been consistently evident in evaluations from DC teachers, who praise the ensemble’s role in providing one of the few live classical music education experiences available to their students. Noteworthy ensemble recordings include Bach’s complete motets, magnificats by both J.S. and C.P.E. Bach, the first American recording of the F major and G minor masses, an album of solo cantatas featuring opera luminary Elizabeth Futral, and most recently in 2022, the album “Myths Contested,” which has received effusive critical acclaim from numerous media platforms.
The Washington Bach Consort has been nationally recognized for the visionary excellence of its work: in 2020, an SMU DataArts study identified the Consort as the nation’s 8th highest-performing arts organization and 2nd highest-performing music organization, among thousands of nonprofits.
In 2023, Spur Local (formerly the Catalogue for Philanthropy) continued its tradition of recognizing the Bach Consort as one of the best small nonprofits in greater Washington since 2004. In October 2023, the Bach Consort released its first album in more than 15 years. Myths Contested, on the Acis label, offers both an historical and a modern-day look at perspectives and values that society connects to music. It features Consort musicians performing Bach’s The Contest between Phoebus and Pan and Trevor Weston’s A New Song, a Consort commission that had its world premiere in 2022.
