‘I had a natural inclination for Bach….Joining is a win in itself’
Lone Philippine representative Jascha Obieta placed second in the recent World Bach Competition 2020, an international feat.
Hosted by the Boulder Bach Festival in Colorado, USA, it is a global platform for musicians from the world over through the online solo World Bach Competition. The organization conducted a series of high quality performances and educational opportunities to celebrate the German composer and musician Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach.
With the principle that music is more important now in a pandemic-stricken world, the contest welcomed and featured musicians in high school, university, community, and professional levels to perform Bach compositions through their instrument of choice: percussion, brass, woodwinds, strings, keyboard instruments, plucked instruments, non-traditional instruments, non-classical instruments, non-Western instruments, acoustic and electric instruments.
Obieta, a 20 year-old third-year Music Production student from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde School of Design and Arts, participated in the University Student Solo Instrument-Keyboard and Plucked Instruments Category.
His winning performance featured Prelude & Fugue in C# Major BWV 848 and Prelude & Fugue in F# Major BWV 884, both taken from The Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of sets of preludes composed for solo shows.
In the 2019, he placed second in the Piano Teachers’ Guild of the Philippines’ Romantic and Kasilag Competition Category B2. He was also a semifinalist in the 2018 NAMCYA Junior Piano Category and 2019 Kayserburg Youth Piano Competition.