‘Stile Antico’

The early music ensemble Stile Antico is the ensemble in residence at BOZAR this season. Inviting it to perform one of its concerts under the Bach Heritage festival heading was therefore an opportunity not to be missed! In a contrasted programme, the ensemble brings together three intensely religious composers from different generations. As a member of the persecuted Catholic community in Elizabethan England, William Byrd expressed his faith ardently and defiantly in his music. Nearly five centuries later, the same kind of spiritual conviction is also found in the work of the contemporary Scottish composer, James MacMillan. As for the funeral motet Jesu, meine Freude, this is a monument to the unshakeable Lutheran faith of its composer, Jean-Sébastien Bach.

On the occasion of the Bach Heritage festiva, BOZAR LITERATURE has asked a number of poets to write a poet on Bach for the publication of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at J.S. Bach".