Tradition

»Music must never be comfortable. It does not belong in a museum. It needs to stir up the listener, reach him personally, provoke his thoughts.« said Helmut Rilling. The Internationale Bachakademie implements these guidelines and has been organizing numerous national and international concerts to this day. Helmuth Rilling claimed »Every concert has to be better than the best rehearsal«. And: »Music can only be appreciated if it’s understood.« These ideas are being carried out by countless musicians. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is at the heart of the Bachakademie, yet it is not limited only to his works. The Bachakademie also regularly presents the oratorios of the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Furthermore, groundbreaking commissioned works like »Requiem der Versöhnung« (1995), the four compositions of PASSION 2000 by Wolfgang Rihm, Sofia Gubaidulina, Osvaldo Golijov and Tan Dun or Krzysztof Penerecki’s »Credo« have been premiered. The new artistic director Hans-Christoph Rademann is preserving and developing the ideas of Helmuth Rilling.