Last year, the ICJS Radio Project introduced three hour-long programs centered on Bach's Passions. Sanford Ungar, Goucher College President, ICJS trustee, and the former host of NPR's All Things Considered, hosted the first program, Sing to the Glory of God: The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Christian Choral Music. Among his featured guests were Swarthmore music scholar and historian Michael Marissen, Baltimore Choral Arts Society Director Tom Hall, Washington Bach Consort Director Riley Lewis, and Emory University New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson.

Sing to the Glory of God was broadcast during the winter and spring holidays on fifty public radio stations from coast to coast. The program's spring broadcast sparked intense discus-sion in larger markets (particularly at San Francisco's KALW, Chicago's WFMT, and Cleveland's WCPN) during the Easter/ Passover season when Bach's music is often linked to church services.

What we learned from audiences and choral directors during our initial broadcasts gave rise to two additional hour-long programs that deepened the discussion. What to Do When the Words Hurt was produced by WYPR in conjunction with the ICJS and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society as part of the Choral Arts Classics series. Tom Hall hosted the programs, which featured key passages from superb recordings of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion and St. John's Passion. Chris Leighton and Michael Marissen joined Hall as panelists to explore the music's historical and cultural context, giving particular atten-tion to Bach as a preacher and theologian.

A companion study guide and three compact discs (Sing to the Glory of God and When the Words Hurt) will be available in spring 2005.