Under the motto "CHORal TOTAL", a double anniversary will be celebrated: 500 years of Luther's chorales and 300 years of Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale cantata cycle. In addition to leading international performers and ensembles, 30 Bach choirs from all over the world have been invited to perform this unprecedented cantata cycle. Over 150 events are planned from 7 to 16 June. The main sponsor of the Leipzig Bach Festival is the Sparkasse Leipzig.
In 1524, Martin Luther published the first Protestant hymnal in Wittenberg, thus laying the foundation for the great tradition of Protestant chorales. Since then, generations of composers have used it as a projection screen for musical experiments, including Johann Sebastian Bach: in his second year in office in Leipzig, the cantor of St. Thomas chose the Lutheran chorale as the musical DNA of an entire year of cantatas.
Bach composed more than 50 cantatas in 1724/25 on well-known hymns. At the Bachfest Leipzig 2024, these will be performed in 16 concerts by 30 Bach choirs from five continents. Artistic Director Michael Maul thus follows on from the Bachfest Leipzig 2022, which for the first time brought together Bach ensembles from amateur choirs to professional ensembles from all over the world in Leipzig.
Prof. Dr. Michael Maul, Artistic Director of the Leipzig Bach Festival: "›CHORal TOTAL‹ promises great emotions. In addition to the complete range of the Bach Allstars, more than 30 Bach choirs from all over the world will also be our guests. Together, they will perform Bach's most popular cantata year, and in such a way that all guests can participate.
What began four years ago with the slogan ›BACH — We Are FAMILY!‹, namely to make our annual Bach Festival the most beautiful ›self-help group‹ for Bach fans from all over the world, we will take to the extreme with this program. In short: I am looking forward irrepressibly to the coming Bach Festival and am sure that no one will be able to escape the magic of the chorales, especially in Bach's incomparable refinement!"
Also 300 years old in 2024 will be Bach's first Leipzig Passion music, the St. John Passion. The Passion will be presented in three formats: historicizing with the THOMANERCHOR Leipzig under the direction of Thomaskantor Andreas Reize and in a line-up as in Bach's time; as a staged performance, presented by the Bonn ensemble Vox Bona, and on the BachStage on the Leipziger Markt in a free and barrier-free version, performed and at the same time gestured by the ensemble Sing & Sign, to which the audience at the Leipziger Markt is allowed to sing along with the chorales.
Monteverdi Choir © Chris Christodoulou
"The Apocalypse" – an extraordinary staged production of the Nederlandse Bachvereniging based on choruses and arias by Bach – presents Johann Sebastian Bach, who never composed an opera himself, as a gifted musical dramatist. Bach Medal winner John Eliot Gardiner takes a look at Bach's motets with the Monteverdi Choir and Members of the English Baroque Soloists in a double concert – in dialogue with Isabelle Faust and her interpretation of Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin. This year, Václav Luks will perform Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Collegium 1704, and the Mass in B minor , which will close the festival, will be performed on 16 June by the Collegium Vocale Gent under the direction of Bach Medal winner Philippe Herreweghe.
Bach monument in front of St. Thomas Church © Tom Williger
Many of the other well-known Bach interpreters will perform at the Bachfest Leipzig, including ensembles such as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir under the direction of Bach Medal winner Ton Koopman, the Armida Quartet, Chorus Musicus Köln & Das Neue Orchester under the direction of Christoph Spering, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with Kristian Bezuidenhout or the Neue Bachische Collegium Musicum under the direction of Bach Medal winner Reinhard Goebel.
The ensembles of the festival perform with soloists such as Elvira Bill (alto), Hana Blažíková (soprano), Elisabeth Breuer (soprano), Alexander Chance (alto), Maarten Engeltjes (alto), Miriam Feuersinger (soprano), Bach Prize winner Patrick Grahl (tenor), Bach Prize winner Daniel Johannsen (tenor), Benedikt Kristjánsson (tenor), Tilman Lichdi (tenor), Bach Medal winner Klaus Mertens (bass), Dorothee Mields (soprano), Alex Potter (alto), Bach Prize winner Benno Schachtner (alto), Bach Prize winner Matthias Winckhler (bass) or Hanna Zumsande (soprano).
In recitals, chamber and organ concerts, guests include violinists Leonidas Kavakos, Hélène Schmitt and Chouchane Siranossian, who can be heard as Artist in Residence in six events of the Bach Festival, including the opening on 7 June with Alban Berg's Violin Concerto (To the Memory of an Angel). The harpsichordists Kit Armstrong, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Christine Schornsheim, Andreas Staier as well as Bach Prize winner Alexander von Heißen, guitarists Thibaut Garcia and Antoine Morinière as well as pianist and Bach Prize winner Alexander Paley will also perform at the festival.
Traditionally, the THOMANERCHOR Leipzig and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig will perform the opening concert of the festival, and both ensembles will also perform the open-air service on 9 June at the Leipzig Market. In addition, the two Leipzig composers' houses Mendelssohn-Haus and Schumann-Haus, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the MDR Children's Choir and the MDR Symphony Orchestra as well as the University of Music and Theatre »Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy« Leipzig will contribute extensively to the festival programme with their own productions.
The "BachStage" format on Leipzig's market square with a prominent line-up invites you to free open-air concerts on the opening weekend: The Babylon ORCHESTRA, the Frankfurt Radio Big Band and jazz pianist Dan Tepfer, among others, are expected. The BachStage is presented by the main sponsor of the Leipzig Bach Festival, Sparkasse Leipzig. The programme for children and their families "bach for us", presented by the Leipzig group, promises an exciting encounter with the composer Johann Sebastian Bach in twelve concerts at very different locations.
Scholars from the Bach Archive and international guest speakers traditionally accompany the Bach Festival with free lectures, concert introductions, discussion rounds as well as a Bach consultation hour and a seminar. On the occasion of the festival, Carus-Verlag is organising a workshop with Ton Koopman for choral conductors.
The pre-sale for the Bachfest Leipzig 2024 starts on November 20, 2023!
7 to 16 June 2024
www.bachfestleipzig.de
Gewandhausorchester © Jens Gerber
