Repertoire

David Babbitt has served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the San Francisco Bach Choir since 1981. He was also the founding director of the Bay Area Lutheran Chorale and a past director of the Valley Choral Society. A scholar of early Lutheran liturgy and the music generated from the Reformation period in Northern Germany, he has researched and prepared a large body of creative mu sical projects specifically edited for performance by the San Francisco Bach Choir. It is his unique and historically informed artistic vision that is the focal point and driving energy of the choir. Mr. Babbitt also directs and oversees the musical activities of the choir’s chamber ensemble, Concentus, preparing special concert editions of rare small choral works for them to present in separate performances.

Mr. Babbitt is also a well-known concert organist who specializes in the work of J. S. Bach. He was a featured artist in the dedicatory concert series for the new organ at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and is currently Organist and Music Director at Zion Lutheran Church in Piedmont. He held the same position for nineteen years prior to that at St. Paulus Lutheran Church, San Francisco. As a student at Pomona College, he per formed with a variety of contemporary composers, including Igor Stravinsky, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.