Join Bach Aria Soloists for our beloved Holiday Concert in historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, with heartwarming music that includes soul-stirring arias for soprano and tenor from Bach, Handel, Debussy, Rutter, Barber, plus traditional carols to sing along. Guest tenor, J.W. Keckley, makes his debut with BAS singing some of the most glorious arias in Bach’s monumental cantata canon and beautiful duets of the season with BAS soprano, Sarah Tannehill Anderson. Fill your holiday spirit with Bach Aria Soloists. Guest violinist, Can Balcik-Moretti.
Adults $40
Students $20
JW Keckley, Guest Tenor
JW Keckley is a former opera singer turned communications director, currently serving at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri.
Originally trained as a classical tenor, JW spent several years performing across the country. He has sung Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Acis in Acis and Galatea, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Alfred in Die Fledermaus, to name a few of his leading roles. He appeared with Sarasota Opera as an Apprentice Artist, where he covered the role of Goro in Madama Butterfly and received the Sarasota Opera Guild’s Ann J. O’Donnell Award for Outstanding Apprentice Artist. He returned to the role of Tamino as an Encrantz Professional Fellow at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival. At Central City Opera, he was a Studio Artist in the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program, where he was honored with the Outstanding Studio Artist Award.
A longtime lover of art song, JW most recently performed Schumann’s Dichterliebe with composer and organist Kurt Knecht at St. Paul’s. He holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and St. Olaf College.
These days, JW lives in a century-old bungalow in Kansas City with his wife, Sophia, and their black cat, Taako. Outside of church communications and the occasional local gig, he’s a leatherworker, photographer, amateur baker, and enthusiastic advocate for proper shoe care. He still composes from time to time—mostly for the joy of it.
Can Balcik-Moretti, Guest Violinist
Turkish-Uruguayan violinist Can Balcik-Moretti is an avid solo, chamber, and orchestral musician as well as a passionate teacher. He currently serves as violin and viola faculty at William Jewell College and pursues a Doctoral degree in violin performance at UMKC, studying under Prof. Joseph Genualdi.
Can completed his undergraduate studies at Dokuz Eylul University Conservatory with Jerrold Rubenstein and Joshua Epstein. He then moved to the U.S. to pursue a Master's Degree in violin performance at the University of Iowa, where he was awarded the Henry and Parker Pelzer Fellowship Award and served as concertmaster for the University Symphony. Can is currently working on his DMA at UMKC, where he was awarded the concertmaster assistantship for three years to lead the UMKC Symphony, Chamber, and Opera Orchestras. During his time there, he performed for world-class musicians such as Michael Stern and Ralph Evans, and had the opportunity to work with composer Aaron J. Kernis.
During his early years, Can served as principal second of the Dogus Cocuk Symphony and the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, touring all over Turkey and numerous countries in Europe. He was also actively involved in the chamber music residency program, through which he worked with leading quartets such as Brentano, the JACK, Ying, Lark, and many others. He has performed orchestral and chamber works in venues such as Beethovenfest in Bonn, Bozar in Brussels, Hagia Irene in Istanbul, and Enescu Festival in Bucharest. As a solo performer, Can has made live appearances in Turkish, Belgian, and Kansas City radios, performing solo Bach and Turkish compositions.
In addition to his active performing and teaching career, Can has been working on many passion projects. In recent years, he has been experimenting with the performance practices of the Baroque Era and had the opportunity to perform with Bach Aria Soloists and KC Baroque Consortium. Can’s upcoming projects include a recital of 20th-century Turkish violin and piano compositions, and a recording project for Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre’s violin sonatas.