What a lovely start to the day. Petroc Trelawny talked about us on the ‘Bach before 7’ slot on BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast show, describing our group and its work and referring to the 40th anniversary concert in November last year. They then played the duet ‘Mein freund ist mein’ from cantata BWV 140, featuring our old friend oboist Anthony Robson. The broadcast is here, from about 25 mins in or listen to an excerpt below:

Our busy start to the year continues with a performance of Bach’s oratorio in miniature, Cantata BWV 22, Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe.

The work shows that Bach had mastered the composition of a dramatic scene… [and] shows elements which became standards for Bach’s Leipzig cantatas and even the Passions, including a “frame of biblical text and chorale around the operatic forms of aria and recitative”, “the fugal setting of biblical words” and “the biblical narrative … as a dramatic scena”. (Wikipedia)

We look forward to performing this at St. Mary-at-Hill, just a couple of days after returning from performing BWV 79 in a special Reformation-year-evensong in Cambridge.

Image: via King’s College Cambridge Chapel Choir Twitter

We are delighted to have been invited to join the Choir of King’s College Cambridge and of the London German Church to perform cantata BWV 79 at a special Evensong as part of the Lutheran council of Great Britain’s Roadmap Storymobile tour. The tour is helping to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, of which there is more information via the website reformation500.uk. This unique event is in the Chapel of King’s College at 5.30pm on Thursday 23 February.

The City Bach Collective will be led by our leader-director Hazel Brooks and the music of the service conducted by the choirmaster of the College Choir, Stephen Cleobury.

We are very happy to have been invited back to perform the music for the St. Anne’s Lutheran Church Bach Vespers services in 2017. This is the 500th anniversary year of the Reformation (about which one can read much more on this dedicated page) and we are looking forward to contributing to the unique and special occasion that will be each and every event in association with St. Anne’s throughout the year.

The first of our Bach Vespers is on Sunday 29 January, as ever, at 6.30pm. We will perform cantata BWV 72, Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, whose central alto recitative reflects the iterated Beatitudes of the sermon on the mount, from which many Epiphany Gospel readings are drawn.

We hope that you can join us for this  performance, which includes other contemporaneous German baroque music. And don’t forget that we are also performing cantata BWV 140, Wachet auf, on 8 Jan at the Dutch Church in the City.

We’re really looking forward to starting 2017 in style with a performance of Bach’s much loved Christmastime cantata ‘Wachet auf’ BWV 140 at the Dutch Church in the heart of the City. The event features organ music by Bach on the wonderful Dutch Church organ performed by the organist David Titterington, and the former MP Jonathan Aitken gives a talk just prior to our cantata performance.

The event, at 3pm on Sunday 8 January 2017 is free to attend (there’s a collection to which you can contribute) and lasts around an hour. More via the Dutch Church website at dutchchurch.org.uk.