In 1723, as soon as Bach began his tenure as the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, he embarked on one of the most ambitious musical projects the world had ever seen – the Cantata Project. The goal of this project was to complete five sets, or cycles, of church cantatas for the Lutheran liturgical year – essentially, one cantata for every Sunday and feast day, roughly sixty per year. We have mostly complete sets of three cycles, with over two hundred cantatas surviving. The schedule to prepare these cantatas was gruelling, with musicians often receiving their parts only the day before the service in which they were to be performed. 

Bach’s Cantata Project is a blueprint of creative genius – connecting music and text to express spiritual and emotional truth. It stands as one of the great musical monuments of Western history: deeply rooted in its time, yet timeless in its reach. 

The Sydney Cantata Project seeks to continue Bach’s legacy by inspiring the city of Sydney through discovering these works, which stand as the pinnacle of human achievement. Our rehearsal model follows that of Bach, assembling some of the country’s best and most passionate early-instrument specialists. Each month, they perform two of Bach’s cantatas, with only ninety minutes of rehearsal immediately prior to the concert.

Since launching in 2023, the Cantata Project has already performed forty of Bach’s cantatas, including the Ascension Oratorio, Coffee Cantata, as well as the St John Passion, works by Telemann, Buxtehude, Zelenka, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, and C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat in D. All concerts are performed on period instruments, and this year, we are presenting six concerts at churches across Sydney, including St Martin’s Killara and St Stephen’s Newtown.

We warmly invite you to join us at our next concert as we continue to explore and celebrate the enduring richness of Bach’s cantatas.