MASTERS OF THE LATE BAROQUE

MUSICOLOGY

Terrill A. McDade, Executive Director of The Berkshire Bach Society, was educated in music history at Smith College, where she studied with Peter Bloom, Ronald Perera, Lori Wallfisch, and others, and Yale University, working with Claude V. Palisca, Craig Wright, Kerala Snyder, Leon Plantinga, and Robert Bailey.  After Yale she earned a master’s degree in business administration at New York University’s Stern School of Business and started a career in financial services. For many years she was an independent management consultant and advisor to the industry, working as a strategist and technology business manager for global investment banks including UBS, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and others. 

She joined the Board of The Berkshire Bach Society in November 2016 and became Executive Director in 2021. Since joining the Board, she has been the primary advisor on music programming and author of BBS concert program notes.  Her approach to annotating music emphasizes history rather than technical musical analysis and seeks to bring to life for readers the lively and practical aspects of Baroque society, many of which are similar to attributes of today’s world.  In 2024 she was instrumental in bringing Eugene Drucker, co-founder of the legendary Emerson String Quartet, to BBS as Artistic Director and has worked closely with him to expand the BBS event calendar.  

She lives in an 1810 Georgian farmhouse in Mill River (MA) that was acquired and restored by her family in 1967. In addition to her work with The Society, she enjoys classical music, opera, the natural resources of the Berkshires, and the sport of dressage.  She is married, has adult twin sons, and a (retired) dressage horse.

VISITING SCHOLAR

George B. Stauffer is Distinguished Professor of Music History and Dean Emeritus of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Educated at Dartmouth College, Bryn Mawr College, and Columbia University, he is well known for his writings on the music and culture of the Baroque era in general and on the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach in particular. He has published eight books, including Bach: The Mass in B Minor: The Great Catholic Mass (Yale University Press) and The World of Baroque Music (Indiana University Press), and has contributed numerous writings to American, European, and Asian publications, including The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Collier's Encyclopedia, Bach-Jahrbuch, Early Music, and many other journals. As a feature writer, he has contributed to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and The Weekly Standard, and has held Guggenheim, Fulbright, ACLS, IREX, and Bogliasco fellowships. A past president of the American Bach Society, he is a frequent lecturer at David Geffen Hall, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and other New York concert venues. He is currently at work on the volume Why Bach Matters, to be published by Yale University Press, and a book on the organ music of J.S. Bach for Oxford University Press. As an organist, he studied with John Weaver and Vernon de Tar at New York’s Juilliard School and served as University Organist and Director of Chapel Music at Columbia University for 22 years. He co-authored the standard pedagogical text Organ Technique: Modern and Early (Oxford University Press) with fellow organist George H. Ritchie that is the classic text for educating students of the organ today. In February 2020 he provided music historical commentary to the recital of Bach works by organist Renée Anne Louprette for the Berkshire Bach Society.

MUSICAL GLOSSARY

Berkshire Bach’s Glossary includes a selection of common musical terms associated with Baroque Music and is designed as a quick reference.