The Dayton Bach Society was a choral group founded in 1974 by Dr. Richard P. Benedum, then chair of the Music Department at the University of Dayton. The Society was named for the 18th century German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. The chorus performed all of Bach's major oratorios and passions, in addition to a large number of his cantatas. More broadly, the chorus performed choral music from the medieval period to the present day.
The Dayton Bach Society performed five concerts each season, primarily at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kettering, Ohio, which has a magnificent pipe organ and a large chancel area to accommodate the chorus. Many of the Society's singers were professional musicians.
At the time of its establishment in 1974, the Dayton Bach Society was the only semi-professional choral group in the Dayton area. The Society disbanded in 2002 following the retirement of the music director, Dr. Richard Benedum.
Dr. Benedum has conducted the major oratorios and cantatas of Bach, as well as other major works from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. He is also an accomplished organ recitalist and church musician. He studied with John Hamilton at the University of Oregon, where he received his D.M.A. in organ performance. He also studied organ and conducting with Helmuth Rilling of Stuttgart, Germany, and musicology with Christoph Wolff of Harvard University. His research interests include compositional process in Bach's works, the meaning and pattern of articulation marks in Bach's autograph manuscripts, and the operas and early biographical studies of Mozart. Dr. Benedum is the alumni chair in the humanities and professor of music at the University of Dayton. He was chair of the Department of Music from 1980-1988 and again from 1996-2001.
From the guide to the Dayton Bach Society records, 1974-2002, (University of Dayton)
