Tacoma Bach Festival: Intimate Bach

• Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano
• Maria Sampen, violin

​Bach and friends in a chamber setting! Violinist Maria Sampen, mezzo-soprano Dawn Padula, and friends present an evening of chamber music and arias by Bach, Strozzi, and Myers. Enjoy an evening of small-scale works for voice and violin in beautiful Kilworth Chapel.

About Tacoma Bach Festival

​The Tacoma Bach Festival was founded in 2022 to explore the music and legacy of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries and to bring high-level Baroque and Baroque-inspired music to Tacoma. As part of its mission, TBF is also dedicated to feature music of underrepresented composers and communities that have been inspired by Bach at every concert . By providing a place for the many world-class Baroque musicians and composers that make the Pacific Northwest home, TBF creates a new creative space to inspire and engage the Tacoma community through the lens of Bach's timeless music. That music and that which it has inspired seeks to strengthen our community, bring us an awareness of beauty, and refresh our souls.

About Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano

Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano is a versatile performer of opera, oratorio, musical theatre, jazz, and classical concert repertoire. Opera roles include Carmen (Carmen), Azucena (Il Trovatore), Lady Jane (Patience 2018 Gregory Awards People’s Choice Award Nominee), Lady Blanche (Princess Ida), Ruth (The Pirates of Penzance), Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Meg (Falstaff), The Third Lady (The Magic Flute), the Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Isabella (The Italian Girl in Algiers), Erika (Vanessa), and the Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas). In the Pacific Northwest, she has performed with Tacoma Opera, Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Kitsap Opera, Concert Opera of Seattle, PLU’s Jazz Under the Stars, Puget Sound Concert Opera, the Tacoma Concert Band, the Oregon Symphony, the Portland Symphonic Choir, the Seattle Bach Choir, the Second City Chamber Series, Classical Tuesdays in Old Town Tacoma Concert Series, Lakewood Playhouse, and Opera Pacifica. With Seattle Opera, she is a member of the Supplementary Chorus. In June 2017, she toured to Varna and Sofia, Bulgaria as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Pazardzhik Symphony. In August 2017, she released her debut classical solo album, Gracious Moonlight, featuring Dominick Argento’s Pulitzer Prize winning song cycle, From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. Dr. Padula is currently the Director of Vocal Studies at the University of Puget Sound School of Music.

About Maria Sampen, violin

Maria Sampen is the University of Puget Sound School of Music's professor of violin and chair of the string department. With extensive experience as a soloist and chamber performer, Sampen teaches a talented studio of Puget Sound students. Her students are frequent winners of various competitions at the local and regional levels.