Kristin Olson Steals A Show with Bach Akademie Charlotte

May 12, 2025

Lawrence Toppman of Note

By Lawrence Toppman

Bach Akademie Charlotte gave a performance titled “Bach Cantatas for Solo Voices” last weekend in Charlotte and Lancaster, S.C., its last concert before the annual festival coming up in a few weeks. And the hero of the night was … an oboe player.

Countertenor Nicholas Garza and bass Edmund Milly were in good voice, and the small ensemble backing them (led by BAC co-artistic director Aislinn Nosky on violin) played with gusto. Yet Charlotte oboist Kristin Olson had to be considered the MVP.

She played the oboe d’amore behind Garza in Cantata 170, “Vergnügte ruh,” and switched to the curvy oboe da caccia — a kind of Baroque English horn — to provide a deeper sound for Milly in Cantata 82, “Ich habe genug.” In between, she made a standard baroque oboe sing through the C minor concerto for violin and oboe, with Nosky taking violin solos. Olson even gave a brief lecture about her instruments, explaining the difference between those and modern oboes. (Hers come from boxwood, a hard, dense wood that can withstand temperature and humidity changes and produces a richer tone.)

That’s the way with BAC: You might have horizons expanded and/or expectations confounded at any gig. The organization will prove that again with its big spring festival, which really kicks off May 31 with a rendering of all six Brandenburg Concertos and concludes with Haydn’s Violin Concerto No. 4 and Mozart’s Requiem. (There’s also a May 30 screening of “Amadeus” at Independent Picture House; Ian Watson, who’s heard on the soundtrack and played organ at last weekend’s concert, will lead a talkback.)

“Cantatas for Solo Voices” offered an unusual contrast in moods. The sung texts expressed bitterness, disgust with humanity, anger, a desire for escape from the miseries of this world. The concerto, reconstructed in what’s believed to be its original form — Bach turned it into a concerto for two harpsichords, and the original is lost – brought 15 minutes of serene beauty. The concert became a despair sandwich with a big slice of joy in the middle.

Both Garza and Milly sang with excellent breath control in the long florid phrases, ringing high notes and solid bottom notes (not always the case with countertenors) and a smart sense of Baroque ornamentation.

Yet I missed the world-weariness in lines such as “To go on living nauseates me … I feel revulsion at all sins” (170) or “I look forward to my death; Ah, that it had already come about. Then I will escape all the distress (82).” These narratives ultimately have a solemn happiness – both singers anticipate reunion with God – but they also express a pain, even anger that we hear less often in the cantatas, and that I seldom heard Saturday night.

I had never attended a concert at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on Queens Road, so I wasn’t prepared for either the high quality of the unamplified acoustics or the cramped, inadequate parking. I will remember both on June 3, when I go back to hear co-artistic director Guy Fishman lead “J.S. Bach and Sons Chamber Music” from his cello during my Bach Binge Week.