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NOLA Life Stories: Communing Through Eternal Sound: Bach Around The Clock Celebrates 17 Years

Albinas Prizgintas, who started the Bach Around the Clock festival, began working at the Trinity Episcopal Church in 1988.
Eric Laws
Albinas Prizgintas, who started the Bach Around the Clock festival, began working at the Trinity Episcopal Church in 1988.

As part of a new collaboration with The Historic New Orleans Collection, WWNO brings you NOLA Life Stories: an oral history project documenting the people, places and things that shape New Orleans. This week historian Mark Cave interviews Albinas and Manon Prizgintas, a married couple that produces Bach Around the Clock — an annual musical event held at Trinity Episcopal Church.

Seventeen years ago Albinas, the church’s organist and music director, “needed something new.” Convinced that “all musicians must pass through Bach,” he ambitiously started a round-the-clock celebration to honor the baroque composer.

Although the schedule was largely improvised at first, the event now includes more than 300 performers and lasts 29 consecutive hours. But even after all these years, Albinas and his wife Manon still remember the first night.

Thomas Walsh is an independent radio producer and audio engineer who lives in New Orleans. You'll see him around town recording music, podcasts, short films, live events and radio features. He's practically glued to his headphones. A movie geek to his core, he's seen every film listed on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies and would love to talk to you about them.