Boulder Bach Festival has provided orchestral, vocal, and chamber music for over forty years to audiences in Boulder, Colorado—a city with a vibrant arts scene. In 2014 a new era began for Boulder Bach Festival, as pianist Mina Gajic and violinist-conductor Zachary Carrettin took over the artistic leadership of the organization—a pivotal moment in BBF’s history. The duo recognized a pressing need for the festival to reexamine and redefine its artistic direction. Their vision included diversifying programming and connecting a variety of music styles spanning 500 years, including collaborations with electric instruments and contemporary dance, as well as explorations of art, literature, language, and music across time and cultures, presented in a variety of contexts, while continuing to “navigate music history with J.S. Bach as a compass.”
Mina Gajic and Zachary Carrettin engaged musicians from across the United States and Europe to collaborate with Colorado-based musicians, building an ensemble of flexible artists who all have a strong background in baroque style, but also improvise and play world and popular music. The duo crafted a Fellowship Artist Initiative in 2017, aimed at mentoring emerging professional musicians, culminating in a recording of Bach concertos released in 2023 under the Sono Luminus label.
Mina Gajic and Zachary Carrettin
Exponential growth of the educational programs was a top priority. What had been a couple of annual events quickly turned into forty or more events serving approximately 2,000 students annually.
In 2019, Boulder Bach Festival’s resident ensemble was rebranded as COmpass REsonance (CORE), and has since collaborated with remarkable concert artists including world-renowned violin soloist Vadim Gluzman, with whom CORE plans to record an album featuring both Baroque and contemporary compositions, in 2025.
Mina Gajic and Zachary Carrettin have commissioned new works each year in Boulder, including a recent concert dedicated to composers living in Iceland. Additionally, COmpass REsonance frequently performs rediscovered ancient music, often in first-ever performances in the State of Colorado, or U.S. premieres of works resurrected from manuscript or early publications. This year for example, one of CORE’s Fellowship Artists is creating new editions of orchestral works by Tomaso Albinoni and Maria Teresa Agnesi, while also exploring new ways to orchestrate popular music from the 60’s to the present—specifically for COmpass REsonance future projects.
COmpass REsonance has presented many works by women composers from the 1600’s to the present, and rarely-heard music from Central and South America, always contextualized with fascinating anecdotes and literature during the performances. CORE’s unique events often blend electric and acoustic instruments, focusing on the resonance and creating a particular acoustic environment, while utilizing improvisation and historically informed performance practices. This reshaping of Boulder Bach Festival into the ensemble COmpass REsonance has expanded the vision, attracting new audiences and donors, tripling the organization’s budget, and revealing the community’s desire for innovative programming performed by a stellar ensemble without conductor.
During pandemic lockdowns Gajic and Carrettin presented World Bach Competition online, featuring 275 musicians from 40 nations. Soon afterward they launched an online concert series titled Colorado Concert Films, showcasing outdoor and indoor performances of CORE artists, Colorado’s natural beauty, music manuscripts, and poetry. These two efforts garnered more than 300,000 views on Boulder Bach Festival’s YouTube channel.
Mina Gajic is also the founder the Boulder International Chamber Music Competition (BICMC), known as the “Art of Duo.” This effort has brought musicians from around the globe to Boulder, performing ancient and contemporary music, with many of these artists attributing their subsequent opportunities to successes at BICMC Art of Duo. In the 2016 and 2018 Art of Duo installments, Boulder Bach Festival served as a fiscal sponsor, an umbrella organization of sorts, helping Art of Duo in various ways.
Boulder Bach Festival has carefully navigated an evolution focused on the development of a world class ensemble and vibrant education programs. It has been redefining what a Bach festival can be, who a Bach festival can serve, and how a Bach festival can pivot, increasing relevance and inspiring communities.
When asked about the organization’s future, Music Director Zachary Carrettin responded, “Now that our amazing board of directors has officially approved the name change to COmpass REsonance, we can focus increasingly on our thrilling artistic explorations—rooted in the baroque and venturing far beyond. I like to think of this as working in a laboratory: we all assemble, equally prepared for rehearsal, and then new worlds of possibilities are revealed the more we invite and allow. It’s very special.”
Artistic & Executive Director Mina Gajic expressed enthusiasm at the upcoming recording plans with Gluzman, and the bringing together of ancient and contemporary music that their upcoming multimedia concert projects will explore. She says COmpass REsonance will present a Bach Festival in the springtime annually, and that the CORE home series and touring will also feature five hundred years of old and new music presented in constantly-changing ways, utilizing sculpture and technology, and collaborating with dance, spoken word, and film.
As Boulder continues to serve its community with many organizations presenting a wide variety of offerings, COmpass REsonance provides a unique synthesis of ancient and contemporary, artfully providing a relevant experience through the guise of classical tradition.
