(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – The Berkshire Bach Society celebrates its twentieth year of “Bach at New Year’s” – featuring the celebrated Berkshire Bach Ensemble directed harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper – on Tuesday, December 31, at 6pm, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. This year’s program casts a retrospective and somewhat nostalgic glance back at this annual tradition by performing all of Bach’s six Brandenburg Concerti in reverse order.

Beginning with the friendly and intimate Concerto No. 6, scored for the septet of two arm-held violas (da braccio), two leg-held violas (da gamba), cello, bass and harpsichord, the program moves through the mischievous and dreamy Concerto No. 5, with its flute, violin and harpsichord solos, and the echo-happy Concerto No. 4, which sports flute and violin solos, to end with the brass-studded Concerti Nos. 3, 2 and 1, in Berkshire Bach’s unique versions. Concerto No. 3, lacking an Adagio, always provokes the annual Berkshire Bach guessing game, as perhaps it did in Bach’s day: what will it be this time?

As always, the Berkshire Bach Ensemble boasts virtuosi from near and far: from Monterey, New Marlborough, Williamstown, Ashfield, Boston, Brattleboro, the Catskills, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and New York City.

The program will be repeated on Wednesday, January 1, at 3pm at the Academy of Music in Northampton, Mass.