The Art of the Fugue is among the most formidable things Bach ever wrote — a work that maps counterpoint with the precision of a proof, fugue by fugue, right up to the moment the manuscript stops mid-phrase, unfinished at his death. The Buffalo Chamber Players are performing it Wednesday in a room with a cash bar.
About the Show
That contrast is entirely the point. Bach & Brews: The Art of the Fugue opens the ensemble’s 2026-27 Bach & Brews season on September 30 at The 9th Ward, and the series has never pretended to be a concert hall experience. The concept draws from Bach’s own evenings at Café Zimmermann, the 18th-century Leipzig coffeehouse where he premiered his secular works for paying audiences who were, presumably, also drinking. Artistic director Janz Castelo, who founded the Buffalo Chamber Players in 2007, has put it plainly: “Bach & Brews is our modern take on Bach’s concerts, where audiences can enjoy great music in a relaxed and fun atmosphere not traditionally associated with classical music.”
The Buffalo Chamber Players draw their roster from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; Castelo is a BPO violist among a core of distinguished regional musicians. Since 2007, the ensemble has built a reputation for programming that refuses easy categorization: Western New York premieres of chamber operas, collaborations with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, and CEPA Gallery. Bach & Brews is the ensemble’s most deliberately informal setting, and it suits the repertoire. A WNY Music reviewer found that The 9th Ward’s acoustics carry their own logic — listeners can hear “the space between every note,” a quality that matters when the repertoire is built entirely on the relationships between voices.
The evening centers on The Art of the Fugue (BWV 1080), a work that rewards the experienced and the curious in equal measure. Each contrapunctus is a variation on a single subject; the relationships among them are the argument. You don’t need to know what a stretto is to hear that something systematic and precise is happening; it is compelling in the way that only rigorously constructed things can be.
Venue & Logistics
The 9th Ward sits in the lower level of the Babeville building at 341 Delaware Ave in Buffalo. The brick-walled room with a full cash bar is one of the more distinctive concert spaces in western New York. Doors open at 7 p.m.; music begins at 7:30 p.m. Free parking is available at the Asbury Hall lot and along Delaware Avenue.
Tickets
Individual tickets are $22 in advance and $25 day of show. A four-concert subscription covering the full 2026-27 Bach & Brews series runs $80. All ages are welcome. Buy tickets