AMERICAN BACH SOCIETY Information

The beginnings of the American Bach Society can be dated to 1972, when a group of American scholars formed a chapter of the Neue Bachgesellschaft (New Bach Society), an organization founded in Germany in 1900 to promote the study and performance of Bach's music. When Germany became a divided country after World War II, the New Bach Society sought to retain its members and, in particular, to find a means whereby members living in East Germany would be able to attend its annual meetings. By forming chapters in East and West Germany as well as the United States, the Neue Bachgesellschaft was established as an international organization, enabling it to achieve its goals. Charter members of the American chapter included Gerhard Herz, Alfred Mendel, William Scheide, and Alfred Mann. Mann, as secretary, administered the business of the chapter from the offices of the oldest American Bach organization, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem (founded in 1898), where he served as director from 1970 to 1980. The Bach-Jahrbuch, along with English translations of the Gesellschaft's newsletters, were distributed annually to members of the chapter. The New Bach Society, American Chapter, held its first meeting in 1976 at the Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem, PA, and continued to hold meetings on a triennial basis until 1988. In 1988, under the guidance of George Buelow, the chapter incorporated as the American Bach Society, an independent, non-profit organization. Administered by a president, vice-president, and secretary-treasurer in consultation with an advisory board, a primary goal of the Society was to encourage and sponsor the publication of Bach research in English. In addition to issuing a semiannual Newsletter, from 1989 to 1993 the Society published the journal BACH in collaboration with the Riemenschneider Bach Institute. In 1994, the Society initiated Bach Perspectives, a serial publication edited by members of the Society in consultation with an editorial board, and in 2004 replaced its Newsletter with Bach Notes, a ...