Word: westenburg
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Says Westenburg: "I tend to view life as one earth-shaking event after another...
During performances, he tends to abandon approaches agreed upon in rehearsal, spontaneously switching tempos, reshaping melodies, emphasizing new articulations. For Westenburg, who has spent 25 years exploring baroque performance practices, none of this is arbitrary...
...earlier markings might as well have been in red ink. Musica Sacra began precariously in 1964 as an outgrowth of concerts Westenburg organized as choirmaster of Manhattan's Central Presbyterian Church. Encouraged because the decision to charge admission had doubled audiences, the group incorporated as an independent entity in 1973 and progressed rapidly toward bankruptcy. The trouble was that Westenburg tried to do everything himself: collect texts, read program proofs, deliver checks to the musicians' union. Finally, with help from the New York State Council on the Arts, he hired an administrator, assembled a board of trustees...
...rising, Musica Sacra seems assured of a secure place in the New York concert scene. But only in the New York concert scene. "When you have a group as expensive and cumbersome to move around as ours, you can't just take it out to Davenport, Iowa," says Westenburg. "Our future for expansion lies in records and television, and we're working on both...
Besides serving as head of the choral department at Juilliard, Westenburg is now music director at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (where most of his Musica Sacra singers also perform) and conductor of the Collegiate Chorale, a 160-voice amateur chorus. And he is planning another Basically Bach festival for next year. All of this has forced him to forgo his weekly summer baseball games and subside to the status of a merely passionate fan. His team? "The Yankees-I guess because they're winners." Coming from a man with Westenburg's recent record, that figures...