Anthony Newman Bedford’s High Priest of Bach

Anthony Newman Bedford’s High Priest of Bach: Wynton Marsalis called Dr. Anthony Newman “the high priest of Bach.” Time magazine called him “the high priest of the harpsichord”. Six times a year he is the high priest of Bedford Village.

Dr. Newman is the Music Director at St. Matthews Episcopal Church at 382 Cantitoe Road in Bedford Village where he plays the organ and harpsichord for the faithful every Sunday. He also performs there, in it’s acoustically significant Fellowship Hall, with the Bedford Chamber Ensemble serving up programs in his Bedford Chamber Concerts series from Bach to Gershwin for anyone in the market for world class classical music served up locally for a fraction of the cost of a Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall ticket.

In fact, Dr. Newman has performed at Carnegie Hall and at Lincoln Center more than 60 times and has collaborated with Kathleen Battle, Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Leonard Bernstein and Eugenia Zukerman. He conducted and arranged In Gabriel’s Garden, the best selling classical music album of 1997, for Wynton Marsalis and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

In his is recording career he has performed on over 900 records for CBS Masterworks/Columbia, Sony and other top labels including performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos, Handel’s Water Music, Mozart’s Piano Sonatas and works by Schumann, Couperin, and Scarlati.

And, of course, he has recorded Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, The Well Tempered Clavier and most famously Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The Brandenburgs are considered among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has performed the Brandenburgs at Alice Tully Hall every year since 1969 and their performances have been called “a New York holiday staple” by The New York Times. Dr. Newman has performed them at Alice Tully Hall with CMS 12 times. You can see him perform them on Wednesday, December 9 in Bedford where he tackles Bach’s masterwork every other year.

Dr. Newman has also composed four symphonies, four concerti, three large choral works and two operas. His most acclaimed work is his Sibley Requiem that has received 33 ASCAP Awards. Each year he programs an original work into the Bedford Chamber Ensemble’s series of concerts.

Special soloists of worldwide classical music significance frequently join Dr. Newman’s seven-piece ensemble. His list of acclaimed guests includes Cho-Liang Lin, Pamela Frank and Eugenia Zukerman.

Whether you are a townie or a culture-vulture add the Bedford Chamber Concerts to your local bucket list of things to do before you die or move to Taos.