Is Music Something You Buy, or Something You Do? | Lolly Lewis | BACH 52

Music isn't something you buy. It's something you do. Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan sits down with recording producer Lolly Lewis — founder of the Amateur Music Network and the engineer behind the majority of BACH 52's own aria sessions — to ask why we've come to treat music as a product instead of an experience, and what gets lost when we do. Lolly has spent her career on both sides of that divide: as a producer, turning fleeting performances into files you can own and replay; and through the Amateur Music Network, building programs that open the door for people of every skill level to sing, play, and stand inside the music as it happens — never to be repeated in exactly that way again. Her conclusion is simple and a little radical: the experience that can't be owned might be the only kind of value that was ever real to begin with. The episode closes with the tenor aria from Bach's Cantata 26, "So schnell ein rauschend Wasser fließt" — a meditation on time slipping away, scored with restless, cascading lines passed between flute, violin, and tenor. Bach, who lived through an era when life expectancy hovered in the mid-30s and lost half his own children before adulthood, knew exactly what this aria is naming. BACH 52 Episode 18 with Lolly Lewis, recording producer & founder, Amateur Music Network ‪@amateurmusicnetwork‬ & Nicholas Phan, tenor ARIA Tenor Aria from Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig, BWV 26 PERFORMERS ‪@SFConservMusic‬ Baroque Ensemble Corey Jamason & Elisabeth Reed, directors with members of ‪@PBOsf‬ BWV 26 was filmed in San Francisco, California, January 2025. Special thanks to ‪@AmericanBachSociety‬,‪@SFConservMusic‬, and ‪@PBOsf‬ for their support of this episode. 🎵 TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Cold open — "Is Bach for everyone?" 02:25 Episode intro — music as commodity vs. active experience 05:02 Lolly introduces herself — "the eternal verity" 09:06 Cantata 140, her mother, and a transcendental experience 13:09 Why Bach is constructed differently — sequences and growth 16:09 Bach at the threshold of modernity 17:46 Producer vs. listener: two ways of hearing Bach 24:28 Founding the Amateur Music Network 33:10 Music as commodity — reclaiming active participation 41:19 Congregational music and the California Symphony collaboration 42:49 Why Bach endures — "the hub of the wheel" 46:34 Elitism, Lang Lang, and the Goldberg Variations 54:00 Reflecting on the BACH 52 project itself 59:02 Aria introduction — Cantata 26 SOUND: Lolly Lewis (BWV 26) VIDEO (aria and primary interview): ‪@clubsodaproductions‬ VIDEO (intros and mini-interviews): Nicholas Phan This project is a fiscally sponsored project of FRACTURED ATLAS. To learn more or to make a tax-deductible donation in support of the continuation of this project, please visit: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.or... #Bach #ClassicalMusic #Cantatas #SacredMusic #BACH52 #HistoricalPerformance #EarlyMusic