Bach Akademie Australia
Madeleine Easton Artistic Director

The Bach family spent their lives in service. After four generations of practicing musicians, J.S. Bach was no different. He was a passionate educator, pedagogue, school master and mentor to his own many children and those of the Thomasschule of which he was Cantor. With a strong social conscience, he composed music to enrich, instruct and inspire the lives of all. Bach Akademie Australia presents a program featuring Bach’s cantata ‘Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot’, dubbed the ‘refugee cantata’, thought to have welcomed the arrival into Germany of Protestant refugees banished from Salzburg. Composed in Cöthen, his Harpsichord Concerto in E arranged for violin is a shining example of clever adaptation, which he used later in his career as a tool for teaching his students. We end with his famous cantata ‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’ BWV 147, which perfectly encapsulates Bach’s desire that our hearts, mouths, deeds and lives be in service to humanity and to God.

J.S. Bach Cantata ‘Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot’ BWV 39
J.S. Bach Harpsichord Concerto in E arranged for Violin in D (after BWV 1053) arr. K. Debrezeni
J.S. Bach Cantata ‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’ BWV 147