We’re just had our first rehearsal of the first week of the 2013 Oregon Bach Festival. It’s a big year for the organization, with the founding conductor and artistic director Helmuth Rilling stepping into the role of artistic director emeritus with the ascendance of Matthew Halls as the new artistic director of the festival beginning in 2014. The first work of the festival is the immense and positively celestial Missa Solemnis of Beethoven, performed on Friday evening with Rilling on the podium. Tuesday night is an Opera Gala featuring works of Wagner, Verdi, and Britten, all of who celebrate major birthday years this year, all conducted by Matthew Halls. My final participation of the festival comes on July 6th, when the baton is passed from Rilling to Halls, in a concert featuring the Double Concerto for Violin and Cello of Johannes Brahms, Psalm 95 of Mendelssohn, and Brahms’ Shicksalslied. The concerto is a family affair, with Rahal Rilling playing the solo violin part, and her husband, principal cellist Dávid Adorján in the solo cello part. It should be an emotional concert for all concerned.