Carmel Bach Festival 1999 to present Copyright © 2024 CBH

NASA VISIBLE EARTH

CAREY BEEBE

Point Lobos

Every northern hemisphere summer, musicians and audience gather in the picturesque town of Carmel-by-the-sea on the Monterey Peninsula, about two and a half hour’s drive south of San Francisco, for the Carmel Bach Festival.

The world-famous Pebble Beach Golf Courses are a mile or two north, and the natural beauty of Point Lobos—described by landscape artist Francis McComas as “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world”—is a few miles south following Highway 1 along the coast through Big Sur to Los Angeles.

The fairytale town of Carmel itself was settled in the early 1900s as a Bohemian artist community. Remnants of this quaint beginning remain—there are no footpaths or street lighting, and houses don’t have numbers so they must be described like “Dolores 2 NE 12th”. Many owners give their houses quirky names. In July 2024, though, Carmel hit world news because the City Council narrowly voted in favor of implementing house numbers.

2024 marked the 87th year of the Carmel Bach Festival, and the twenty-fourth I’ve been asked here to oversee the preparation of all the early keyboard instruments for two intensive weeks of rehearsals followed by the two-week and a day performance season. (Somewhat generously, the Festival gifted every participant an extra year of service for the 2020 COVID-canceled season, so I’ll be receiving my twenty-five year certificate next year.) Before the Global Financial Crisis, the Festival had a three-week performance season. I haven’t always been the only Australian in Carmel: The orchestra was led by Elizabeth Wallfisch for more than fifteen years to 2010, and Sally-Anne Russell from Adelaide was mezzo-soprano soloist here for several years.

More than a month out of every year represents a fair slab of time for anyone. As Carmel turned into sort of a second home base for me, in 2004 I decided I should write a bit about what happens and what I do here: In spite of its longevity, the Carmel Bach Festival is not so well known outside of the United States.

CAREY BEEBE

Rehearsal underway in 2004 for the St Matthew Passion in the newly-rebuilt Sunset Center Theater

The Sunset Community Center is the focus of the Bach Festival. The city spent USD23 million and several years on the rebuild of the old grammar school hall which had been associated with the Bach Festival from its inception, and we moved into the “new” venue in 2004. The facility is shared by the Monterey Symphony and Carmel Music Society throughout the year, and has the latest in high-tech adjustable acoustic enhancement (LARES—Lexicon Acoustic Reinforcement and Enhancement System) to tweak the ambience of what used to be a hall not terribly well-suited for classical music performance at all.

The framework of the Festival program has become well-established over the years, but each year sees its own minor variations. When I began in Carmel, much—but not all—of the Festival was performed on modern instruments at A440. Monday night, however, has always been an opportunity to hear the Festival Strings on original instruments at baroque pitch. Now, with a critical mass of early wind players available, most of the early music is performed on appropriate instruments at A415. Wednesday has traditionally been a Founders’ Memorial Concert in the San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo Mission , the second oldest Mission in California, and the resting place of its Franciscan Founding Father, now Saint Junípero Serra.

CAREY BEEBE

Sunset over the 18th-century Spanish Carmel Mission Basilica

The base program for the evening concerts repeats for the second week, so each main program is performed twice. The Saturday of the final weekend is a celebratory Best of the Fest program, with highlights from the entire program introduced by Artistic Director and Conductor, from 2023 onwards Grete Pedersen.

All Saints’ Episcopal Church is the established venue for the Intermezzo Recital Series, with a wide variety of programs held every weekday afternoon. In 2007 many of these moved to a new venue closer to the centre of Carmel, the Methodist Church of the Wayfarer. (We have now been back in All Saints’ for several years, but sometimes still use Wayfarer as a rehearsal venue.) Several of these early afternoon performances require an appropriate harpsichord, and occasionally organ in addition. Some years, one or more have used fortepiano. The Saturday recital is usually keyboard free and held in the late morning at Sunset Center Theater. Again, this series of daytime recitals repeats to cover the whole season.

To exploit the space gained in the Sunset Center rebuild, the Foyer Recitals were commenced in 2004. Originally based around theorbo and devized by Daniel Swenberg, these popular lunchtime programs have expanded to include diverse instruments. They repeat for the duration of the festival, and are usually sold out. Keyboard crept into this perfect space for the first time in 2009.

As if that wasn’t enough to fill in the schedule, there are also different Twilight and Candlelight programs—several requiring early keyboard most years—in various venues including the Church in the Forest at Stevenson School in nearby Pebble Beach. Principal keyboardist Andrew Arthur curates his Thursday late afternoon ensemble program in the wonderful acoustics of the first cathedral in California, San Carlos Borroméo de Monterey.

JIM KASSON

Tuning the continuo organ for a 2006 performance in the Carmel Mission

Running concurrently with all this is the Adams Vocal Master Class. On the final Saturday there is always the performance of the four “VBAs”—the young professional singers who were chosen to study under Michael Beattie and the vocal soloists in this master class founded by David Gordon in 1984 to honor the late Virginia Best Adams, late widow of the famous Californian landscape photographer Ansel Adams. And now we have the Baroque & Classical Academy run by Edwin Huizinga, with four gifted string players chosen to make a quartet each year.

There are also a few family concerts, performance panels and outreach performances as well—some requiring early keyboards each year. Fortunately, each year there are normally at least some other concerts which don’t require my direct participation: Andrew Arthur’s Monday morning solo Bach’s Organ Music on the 1986 Casavant organ at the Mission, for example.

CAREY BEEBE

“…the raddest harpsichord technician on earth!” View from my front yard to Carmel River Beach in 2006, ready to use my official Festival vehicle on a rare morning off

The actual early keyboard instruments we use at the Festival are all sourced from private and institutional owners mostly in the Bay Area, for many years packed and transported here by my dearest friend and colleague Kevin Fryer. Kevin keeps reminding me that he was the keyboard technician here for nine years from 1990 until my first summer in 1999 when he asked me to fill in for him so he could have a summer off: Neither of us expected at the time that it would become a permanent arrangement! Several years ago, though, I exceeded Kevin’s tenure, so perhaps the job has now truly become mine.

The keyboards are chosen in consultation with the performers to match their repertoire as closely as possible. We have often had four or five harpsichords, a fortepiano or three, and two organs—the latter essential to cover the large liturgical component of each Festival, and especially the double orchestra used in the years we do the St Matthew Passion. Almost all of the harpsichords and organs are equipped with transposing keyboards. In some years we have had up to three fortepianos for me to look after. And the modern Steinway puts in a cameo appearance at one or two performances, but the preparation of that is the responsibility of local piano technician Tom Armstrong.

There is a hectic schedule with moves from venue to venue handled by the unionized crew under the supervizion of the Technical Director Doug Mueller. The frenetic activity of the initial fortnight of rehearsals is only exceeded by the mayhem of Opening Week where recitals for the next day often have their required dress rehearsal immediately after the current day’s first performance. I seem to spend my waking time tuning then biking from one venue to the next. (Mari Lynch from Bicycling Monterey was a keen fan, and liked to blog about me each July. For a period, I think there were more pictures of me online biking rather than harpsichording!)

It’s no California summer beach holiday for me. While the rest of the Continental US swelters, the usual daily maximum in Carmel is a cool 17°. It’s not just tuning. Over the Festival period, there’s always the odd maintenance to perform on the keyboards as well. One of my first priorities after arrival is to work through the instruments, ensuring each is in top condition for the demands of the season. It’s always been my policy to have all the early keyboard instruments returned clean and in better condition than they arrived.

I’m often asked what temperaments I might be requested to tune for the various performances. Like the instruments themselves, the appropriate temperament for a particular concert will usually be chosen in consultation with the keyboardist. To suit the 2024 repertoire, I tuned Quarter-comma meantone, Vallotti, Young II, or Neidhardt’s 1732 kleine Stadt on demand. Some years, Sixth-comma meantone has been needed.

JOHN CASTAGNA

All the keyboards used in the 2010 Festival lined up on the Sunset Center stage for the Keyboard Spectacular

The keyboardists I’ve been delighted to work with in Carmel include Andrew Arthur, Michael Beattie, Keenan Boswell, David Breitman, John Butt, Holly Chatham, Scott Dettra, Scott Allen Jarrett, James Kennerley, Daniel Lockert, Dongsok Shin, Michael Sponseller, Avi Stein, Yuko Tanaka and Gwendolyn Toth. The bios of all the musicians performing on any year can be found on the Carmel Bach Festival website.

The Festival continues to evolve. In 2009, I was invited to write a feature article for the program book on my activities here. 2010 was the final year of both Bruno Weil and Libby Wallfisch: 2011 saw the inaugural season of a new Music Director and Conductor Paul Goodwin, and Concertmaster Peter Hanson. In 2023, Norwegian conductor Grete Pedersen took over as Music Director. The most number of tunings I’ve ever had to do on a single day (18 July 2011) was 14. (Just for fun, for several years to 2014 I kept a running total on the pop-up Tune-o-meter page.) Not including private functions, I tuned for 40 public performances in Carmel in 2006. As several programs required two or even three keyboard instruments, my tunings made a mammoth total of 222 over the five week period that year, including rehearsals. Perhaps the 2009 Festival was the busiest, though, with a daily average of 6.69 tunings: I can safely say I know of no other festival quite like this in the world…

Carey Beebe

		Interview 2007 KUSP’s Roger Emanuels interviewing Carey Beebe at the 2007 Carmel Bach Festival.
		2011 Keyboard Spectacular A quick widescreen stroll around the Sunset Center stage looking at all the early keyboard instruments used during the two week concert season of the 2011 Carmel Bach Festival.
		2010 Keyboard Spectacular A wander around the Sunset Center stage looking at all the keyboard instruments used during the two week concert season of the 2010 Carmel Bach Festival.
		2009 Keyboard Spectacular A lineup on the Sunset Center stage of all the keyboard instruments used during the two week concert season of the 2009 Carmel Bach Festival.
		2008 Keyboard Spectacular A lineup on the Sunset Center stage of most of the keyboard instruments used during the three week concert season of the 2008 Carmel Bach Festival.
		Tower Music @ the Mission The pagentry of the candlelit banner parade at San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo Mission, 2008 Carmel Bach Festival.
		Tower Music @ the Mission II For several decades, patrons arriving at evening concerts of the Carmel Bach Festival have been greeted by brass music.
		Preview of Intermezzo Number 1 — A short portrait Preview of Douglas Mueller’s short documentary on Carey Beebe tuning at the Carmel Bach Festival.
		Intermezzo Number 1 — A short portrait of Carey Beebe Douglas Mueller’s short documentary on Carey Beebe tuning at the Carmel Bach Festival, as shown at the 2010 Nashville Film Festival and the 2011 Ozark Foothills Film Festival.
		Carmel Bach Festival 2001 The Sunset Center has been the primary venue for the Carmel Bach Festival for decades but with a major renovation taking place, the 2001 Carmel Bach Festival had to find a new auditorium. The main building at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, which was once a luxury hotel, was chosen for the 2001 Carmel Bach Festival. In this story we hear what some people, Jesse Read, musician, Carey Beebe, harpsichord maker and tuner, have to say about how the change in venue affects the sound, the audience, and the musicians. Hear it for yourself in a couple of short excerpts from the program.
		An interview with Carey Beebe Filmed at the 2000 Carmel Bach Festival by Endorphin Productions. Carey Beebe has a fascinating and unusual occupation. He constructs harpsichords and travels the world to events like the Carmel Bach Festival to maintain and tune harpsichords. He tells us about the construction and peculiarities of these instruments as we discover the beauty of the harpsichord.

Full details of the Festival can be found on the official Carmel Bach Festival web site.

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