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Listen: Guitarist Michael Poll Plays Bach Live from the WRTI 90.1 Performance Studio

Michael Poll

Classical guitarist Michael Poll has been engaged in a labor of love with J.S. Bach’s music for over two years. His new album 7-String Bach is the culmination of his “Bach Project,” launched through a highly successful Kickstarter campaign.

Join us on Thursday, May 24 at 12:10 pm to hear this Philadelphia native play music Bach composed for the lute.  You’ll hear selections from his album, recorded at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios. 

Watch the performance live on the WRTI Facebook page.

Bach’s method and genius do not reveal themselves immediately, and Poll spent months researching, arranging and learning about Bach’s E Major and E Minor suites for lute (the predecessor of the modern guitar).  His arrangements are played on a 7-string guitar created to replicate the music in its original register, as Bach conceived it.  

Michael Poll lives in London, but grew up in the Philadelphia area, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in music.  He’s both a conductor and guitarist, who’s performed at the Barbican and Wigmore Halls in London, The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, and numerous venues in Europe, and North and South America. 

In his capacity as musical director of the Goodensemble Orchestra, a chamber orchestra based in London, he’s met and performed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II.   

A 2010 Fulbright and 2012 Marshall scholar, Poll delved deeply into the origin of Bach’s music, studying transcriptions, including a manuscript in in Bach’s own hand. Since his 7-String Bach album was released in April, he’s been busy touring the UK, sharing his own arrangements of the layered nuances of one of the world’s greatest composers.

Program for Broadcast:

Suite for Lute No. 1 in E minor (BWV 996), J.S. Bach 

  • Prelude
  • Presto
  • Sarabande
  • Bourrée

Suite for Lute No. 4 in E major (BWV1006a), J.S. Bach

  • Loure

Suite Castellana, Federico Moreno Torroba

  • Fandanguillo