Hey, I'm David Kern.

I'm Heidi White.

And I'm Sean Johnson.

And you are listening to Closeread.

It's a podcast for the Incurable Reader on which we are discussing James Runcys, The Great Passion.

And in particular, we are answering your questions about the great passion.

And we are doing so alongside a very special guest.

And that very special guest is,

yes. Well, you know, maybe the modern equivalent, right? Our very good friend, Greg,

Wilbur. Greg, welcome to Close Reef. Thank you for being here. Oh, thanks so much for asking.

I'm delighted to be here. So we wanted you to come on because for a few reasons, you are a composer, you are a conductor, you are a teacher, all of which are things that Bach does in this book. He composes, he conducts, he teaches.

But also, as it turns out, you are something of an expert on the man himself on Bach. So it made just like too much sense to have you to have you on. So again, thank you for

being here. We're going to get into some audience questions in a second. But first, I want to ask you,

what is your relationship to this book? Well, at first, like, I think many of us, I first heard about it from

you. So I, um, story about life. Right, yes. A number of books that I've read in the last

couple years. Yeah, so I, um, I read it first, uh, beginning of this year. Okay. And, uh, and then

reread it. So, yeah, I very much enjoyed

his approach to taking a slice of, well, it's basically a year in the life of Bach, but a

significant year. And I'm weaving that into a beautiful story. So you've read it twice now.

Is that what you?

I have, yes.

Okay.

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