Bach & Handel

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Baroque Brilliance! Grand celebrations, glorious melodies, and music fit for a king!

Join the Heartland Festival Orchestra for Bach's magnificent Orchestral Suite No. 3 , featuring his beloved Air , and Handel's exuberant Water Music , first performed for a royal party on London's River Thames. HFO Principal Oboe Evan Tammen takes center stage in two beautiful concertos by Albinoni and Bach, showcasing the oboe and its warmer, mellower cousin, the oboe d'amore .

Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite for Orchestra No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068

Tomaso Albinoni, Oboe Concerto No. 2 in D Minor

Johann Sebastian Bach, Concerto for Oboe d’amore in A Major Soloist Evan Tammen, HFO Principal

George Frederic Handel, Water Music Suite

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An active performer and educator, Evan has established himself as a widely respected oboist throughout the region and state. In addition to his role with the Heartland Festival Orchestra, Evan serves as principal oboist for the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra and English hornist for the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. His solo appearances have earned high praise for his “superb musicality, tone, and expressiveness”, and he is in ever-growing demand as soloist and chamber player.

Evan has been a Millikin University faculty member since 2019 and formerly taught at the Conservatory of Central Illinois and Illinois College. He joined the faculty of Eastern Illinois University in 2026, still further adding to his teaching activity and influence. Evan is highly involved in orchestral management and governance. He is currently the Musician Representative Member of the HFO Board, serves on the Sinfonia da Camera advisory board, and was previously elected orchestra representative to the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra Board.

Evan is an alumnus of Illinois Wesleyan University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His principal teachers have included John Dee, Judith Dicker, and Jill West. He remains busy outside of music working as a director of development for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and as a brewer. He is married to a fellow oboist, Angela, and they have two beautiful little girls.

About the HFO: "I love playing in the Heartland Festival Orchestra – the musicians are dedicated, disciplined, and amazingly talented, and Maestro Commanday creates a nutritive and friendly atmosphere that lends itself well to honest music-making. One of my most memorable HFO concerts featured Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana . My wife and I were so inspired by the performance that a few months later, we visited Orff's grave in Bavaria (and enjoyed some beverages in the monastery's beer garden afterwards)."

From Heartland Festival Orchestra