Quarterly Bach Project Update
A round-up of progress + ways to get involved
Guten Morgen! I am happy to report that amid my full-time work in fatherhood programming, monthly performances with the Erie Philharmonic, and my most important roles as husband to Angela and father to Hannah, Henry, and Jonathan, my study of the family life of J.S. Bach is coming along well. In fact, I am finding that my attempts to weave an array of responsibilities and interests together in a fruitful and healthy way is allowing me to better appreciate and represent Bach’s exceptional and polyphonic output.
This week, the project was featured by the Creative Parenting Club (CPC). The CPC is a wonderful group of parents I found on Substack who blend a variety of creative pursuits with family life. The leaders live in Berlin and also founded an organization called Kinder Rave, where DJ parents put on raves in parks and other venues for whole families to enjoy. I hope you enjoy the article I wrote for CPC, along with their other posts!
How’s the book coming?
I love it when folks ask me this! Well, I have four long chapters drafted and a solid start on Chapter 5. As I have been honing my outline and clarifying objectives, I will be able to trim things back in the early chapters and make quicker progress on the next chapters. Chapter 5 gets into the difficult topic of infant loss, the importance of which has been severely overlooked by the majority of Bach scholars.
Now that Jonathan is six months old and sleeping through the night more, I am getting back to my consistent early morning writing routine. In the precious morning hours, I am also preparing a Father’s Day sermon for my church and co-writing a small group study for the MasterWorks Festival with my dear high school violin teacher, Mary Irwin. With all of this in mind, you can expect monthly posts/emails rather than weekly or fortnightly ones—at least until the summer rolls around.
Did you miss any recent posts?
I know how easily emails can get buried, so here are the articles I published in the first quarter of 2025, in case you would like to visit (or revisit) one. I enjoy taking a different approach with each one to bring you unique perspectives on music and family!
Get Involved
If you are enjoying this project and looking forward to the book, here are a few ways you can get involved:
If you are a parent who has studied music formally and performed or taught music professionally, you are welcome to participate in a study I have been doing to collect impressions on Bach and on the state of classical music as it relates to family. If you qualify, I will send you a coffee or other gift card to thank you for your time completing the survey! Here is a link to the survey.
Or, if you appreciate my work and would like to help with some of the research costs, you can make a small gift through this nifty tool called Buy Me a Coffee. ☕️
Otherwise, kindly share a favorite article or the whole Substack with someone who might enjoy it. It makes my day every time I hear that my writing has encouraged someone—especially when it is a young dad or mom who is seeking to integrate creative pursuits with family life!
Can we have some music?
Enough reading about music—how about we enjoy some?!
The prelude in the video below is from the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, a book of keyboard pieces Bach wrote for instructing his oldest son. It is fittingly played here by a teenaged keyboard player named Guillermo González García as part of the Netherlands Bach Society’s amazing All of Bach project.
I also encourage you to enjoy some live music in your area this spring! A quick web search should help you find out what symphonic or chamber performances are happening in your area. Make it a date or bring the whole family. If you are within reasonable driving distance of Erie, PA, I am looking forward to performing Verdi’s Requiem on May 10th in the Philharmonic’s season finale!
Thank you for reading! 🎻
Thanks for the shoutout! And thank you for your insightful article 🎻