The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been difficult for all performing arts organizations, but few Lehigh Valley-based nonprofits have had as much to lose as the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.

Once the official quarantine started in March, the internationally-recognized choir had to cancel not only its spring concert, but also its two-weekend-long Bach Festival, the popular free “Bach at Noon” series and a much-heralded June tour to Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany.

To make matters more complicated, the Bach Choir executive director and artistic director are set to retire and a search that had been started for new leadership has been pushed back.

In the face of all the difficulties, Bach Choir Executive Director Bridget George has remained positive as the choir looks for ways to share its music in untraditional formats for the choir, including online video watch parties and its “Moments of Comfort” series.

“We’re continuing to keep in touch with everyone,” says George.

George says there’s actually good news concerning the choir’s concert tour to Europe, which had been rescheduled for June 12-21.

Michael Moore, director of Bachfest, the 10-day international music festival which takes place in the city where J. S. Bach was cantor at St. Thomas Church from 1723 until his death, was “so gracious and generous” to offer the Bach Choir the opportunity to perform at the 2021 Bachfest before this year’s event was officially canceled.

Performers at the 2021 festival had been almost completely booked. The Bachfest performance by the Bach Choir of Bethlehem will mark the last month of Bach Choir Artistic Director and Conductor Greg Funfgeld before he retires.

“In the midst of everything, they offered to have us perform June 19 [, 2021] in Thomaskirche [St. Thomas Church],” George says.

The choir will perform a Bach cantata at a vespers concert in the church where Bach composed works for each Sunday’s service.

“It is very special to be a feature choir at one of most popular concerts,” George says. “It will be beautiful.”

Almost everyone has signed up for the rescheduled tour, including the Bach Festival Orchestra and guest soloists. The choir’s concerts in Dresden and Prague are also expected to be rescheduled.

The choir’s artistic director search is well underway. The choir’s officials have several candidates under consideration, but pushed back their auditions.

“We hope to have a new artistic director chosen to take over for Greg by July 2021,” says George.

George was scheduled to retire at the end of December, but was asked by Bach Choir Board of Managers President Harold G. Black to stay an extra six months. George agreed to do so.

“There needed to be some continuity through this,” George says. “Now we are both leaving at the end of June 2021.”

The search for an executive director is expected to start in January 2021.

In the meantime, George says efforts to provide music online have gotten enthusiastic responses.

In May, during what would have been the second weekend of the 113th Bach Festival, the choir hosted a watch party on its social media site and YouTube channel of a previously-recorded video of the choir performing Bach’s “Mass in B Minor.”

“The watch party was so successful,” George says. “We had a very robust audience online.”

The performance is scheduled to be broadcast at 2 p.m. June 14 on WVVIA-FM and www.WVIA.org.

George has been getting “very grateful responses” for “Moments of Comfort,” which are introduced by Funfgeld and feature a recorded performance.

One of the traditions at the Bach Festival, a performance of “World, Farewell” to honor members and family who have died since the previous festival, was posted as a “Moment of Comfort.”

The summer “Bach at Noon” series is also going online with video watch parties on the days the concerts were originally scheduled: June 9, July 14 and Aug. 11.

“We won’t be doing ‘Bach at Noon’ in person,” she says. “But we found a way to do each one in a smaller way.”

Solo pieces, duets and small ensembles are being recorded in the sanctuary of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Allentown, without an audience, and released at noon on the concert dates.

Scheduled are:

June 9 - Sherezade Panthaki, soprano; Robin Kani, flute; Loretta O’Sullivan, cello, Bach’s “The Coffee Cantata,” “The Saint John Passion,” “Cantata 61 Offne dich,” “Flute Sonata in G Minor” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “O for the wings of a dove”

July 14 - Panthaki; Dashon Burton, bass-baritone; Mary Watt, oboe; O’Sullivan, cello, Bach’s “Duet from Cantata 140,” Soprano Aria from “The Magnificat - Quia Respexit,” “Pie Jesu” from Gabriel Fauré’s “Requiem,” Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Five Mystical Songs - Love Bade Me Welcome” and Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Oboe Sonata in G Minor”

Aug. 11 - Nola Richardson, soprano; Janna Critz, mezzo-soprano, winners of the biannual Young American Singers Competition, jointly sponsored by The American Bach Society and The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, with Elizabeth Field, violin, Arias and duets from Bach and Handel violin sonatas

Some of the pieces scheduled for the 2020 Bach Festival have been rescheduled.

“We have to have contingency plans for everything,” says George.

The “Chaconne Project,” in which youth musicians write music inspired by Bach’s “Chaconne,” will be held the second weekend of the 2021 Bach Festival, along with a concert by guitar virtuoso Eliot Fisk. The performances had been scheduled for this year’s Bach Festival.

George says there are ongoing discussions about choral singing using social distancing.

The Bach Choir has been holding sectional meetings on Zoom as they devise ways to practice.

Information: www.Bach.org