Leipzig Bach Festival 2018: "Cycles"

LEIPZIG, Germany, November 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

New: Monumental "Ring of Cantatas" on the opening weekend - 48 hours, 10 concerts, 30 cantatas

Leipzig, the city of music, is offering a very special kind of Bach Festival in 2018, from 8 June to 17 June: the monumental "Leipzig Ring of Cantatas 2018" will allow the audience at the opening weekend to experience a complete liturgical year of Bach cantatas. Within a period of 48 hours, a selection of 30 of Bach's sacred cantatas will be performed during a total of ten concerts in Bach's Leipzig churches, St. Thomas und St. Nicholas. Altogether, over 160 events will be taking place at various Leipzig venues, a number of which have historical associations with Bach. The festival will focus on Bach's cyclical works, which will also be cyclically performed by musicians that include the world's leading Bach interpreters and their ensembles; among them Ton Koopman, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Thomaskantor Gotthold Schwarz, Masaaki Suzuki and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Tickets for the 2018 Leipzig Bach Festival are available now.

A Passion cycle and series of performances that include the "Brandenburg Concertos", the "Well-Tempered Clavier", the "Clavier-Übungen" including the "Goldberg Variations", and the "Suites for solo Cello" will reflect Johann Sebastian Bach's penchant for cyclical forms and for groups of works in which he systematically explores the compositional possibilities of a single theme or a specific genre. A special series of concerts dedicated to the great composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Gewandhaus musical director and originator of the Leipzig "Bachpflege", will also take place, with many being held in the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Mendelssohn House. To complement the concerts, scholars from the Leipzig Bach Archive and renowned guest speakers will be giving lectures and providing introductions to the topics of Bach's sacred cantatas and cyclical works. In addition to the main programme in Leipzig's churches and concert halls, there will be the traditional Bach Open Air performances in Leipzig's Market Square.

Programme and information: http://www.bachfestleipzig.de, http://www.kantatenring.de

Bach Festival ticket hotline: +49-3871-211-4191

Information on Leipzig, travel offers, room reservations: Tourist Information, Tel.: +49(0)341-7104-260, [email protected], https://www.leipzig.travel/de

Press contact for Leipzig Bach Festival: Franziska von Sohl, Tel.: +49-341-9137-121, [email protected]

Press contact for Leipzig Tourismus und Marketing GmbH: Eileen Klötzer, Internationale PR, Tel.: +49-341-7104-300, [email protected]