Nicholas Baumgartner to Investigate Contemporary European Bach Interpretation on a Watson Fellowship By Linda Grashoff
	Nicholas Baumgartner is a double-degree student from Albion, Michigan, with majors in piano performance and German. Steven Plank, professor of musicology, is his primary advisor on the Bach projects. Peter Takács, professor of pianoforte, is his piano teacher, and Steven Huff, associate professor of German, is his major advisor in German.		APRIL 5, 1999--"It's the opportunity of a lifetime," says senior Nicholas Baumgartner. "How often do you get a free year?" A free year--in Europe--is what Baumgartner will have, beginning in August, as a recipient of a 1999 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. The Oberlin senior is one of 60 almost-graduates from 49 of America's top liberal-arts colleges to receive $22,000 from the Watson foundation this year. Each will explore a topic of his or her choosing on what the foundation calls a wanderjahroutside the United States. More than 1000 students applied to the first round of the selection. Baumgartner has plans to travel to the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands, where he will interview performers and musicologists who specialize in the music of J.S. Bach. If those he interviews suggest other destinations for interviews with other experts, he may follow that lead, too, he says. Baumgartner is undertaking his project--European Bach Interpretation at the Close of the Millennium--close to the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, which occurs July 28. Baumgartner started his train of inquiry in 1997, when he studied German Bach interpretation while on a Presser Foundation grant in Germany. A paper based on that research--"Currents in Bach Interpretation in Contemporary Germany"--is forthcoming from Bach, a journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute of Baldwin-Wallace College. During his German research Baumgartner interviewed 23 people, including Thomaskantor Georg Christoph Biller, with whom, in Leipzig, he observed the 247th anniversary of Bach's death that July 28. The two are shown in a photograph accompanying an article about Baumgartner's German project that appeared in the summer 1998 issue of Conservatory News. Baumgartner plans to interview 50 people for the next leg of his research and has 15 interviews already confirmed, including appointments with Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, and Rosalyn Tureck. While in Europe Baumgartner will also attend concerts and master classes to explore current interpretational directions in the performance and research of Bach's music within Europe. The Watson foundation selects fellows based on the nominee's character, academic record, leadership potential, willingness to delve into another culture, and the personal significance of the proposed project.
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