David P. Babbitt
David Babbitt (1947–2006) began his musical career as a child in a large and traditional German-Lutheran community in Southern California. When he was eleven, he was appointed organist at one of the major Lutheran churches in the area. He continued his music studies at Pomona College which, combined with his early training, uniquely prepared him for his work as a modern representative of the rich musical culture that sprang from the Reformation. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971, he assumed the position of organist and music director of the old German-American St. Paulus Church in San Francisco (Northern California's Lutheran mother church) where he developed his craft as a liturgical scholar, choral director, and composer. Over the years, he played the grand organ works in concert at St. Paulus and throughout the Bay Area, and began composing choral music in the manner of Bach and other great liturgical masters. He always wrote with specific performing groups, occasions and programs in mind, and his church choirs and the San Francisco Bach Choir provided frequent inspiration for his creative energies.
In 1982, when he took over leadership of the Bach Choir, the choir had focused primarily on the music of J.S. Bach and the great choral masterpieces of the 18th and 19th centuries. In his 24-year tenure as Musical and Artistic Director, David Babbitt brought new repertoire and possibilities to the choir that were grounded in his special knowledge of early music, his background and training as a Lutheran liturgist, and in his deep love of the choral music from Bach's early North German predecessors. He researched and prepared many performing editions of a large body of unpublished works for antiphonal choirs, drawing especially from Germany's rich post-Reformation musical culture that had long lain dormant in library archives. Through his efforts, the San Francisco Bach Choir has presented many modern premieres of this rare literature and explored the dramatic performance format of antiphonal singing.
In honor of the work he did in bringing the rare music of early German composers to light, Mr. Babbitt received the German Friendship award from the San Francisco German Consulate in 2002. He was the Director of Music and organist at Zion Lutheran Church in Piedmont for 14 years and was also the founding director of the Bay Area Lutheran Chorale (now known as Soli Deo Gloria) and a past director of the Valley Choral Society. We salute our past director, the late David Babbitt, and honor his significant contributions to the choral art and to the dynamic early music scene in the Bay Area. We are deeply grateful for the time and creative gifts he shared with us, and are mindful of his enduring vision of the Bach Choir as a strong musical community.
An Interview with Artistic Director David Babbitt
San Francisco Bach Choir performances of rare early music works require extensive research and preparation. This interview tells the story of how one such concert featuring Jacob Handl's works was produced.
