The Bach Babes grew out of an ensemble of Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra members who banded together during an early '90s labor dispute, between unionized musicians and symphony management, to play Vivaldi to audiences sympathetic with their cause. But the deepest roots of the eight-woman ensemble reach to the Baroque Age, whose often tensely melodic music dug the ground for the classical symphonies to follow, but allowed musicians more freedom, more room to improvise. It was like 16th-century European jazz. Although the Bach Babes have employed male guest stars, they also find a certain freedom in working together as women.
Women tend to like to talk things through.
Stiehl cites the atom bomb and the disillusionment with old ideas of progress, which held that newer was always better. The Bach Babes take modern instruments and scale the volume down to a level comfortable in a candlelit baroque chamber. It's a rich repertoire. Before I started playing it, I didn't know there were Mexican baroque performers, female baroque performers. One thing the Bach Babes have seldom done is to perform an all-Bach program.