The Bach Collegium Japan is pleased to announce the lineup for the 2025-2026 season!
In addition to the six subscription concerts, the 2024-2025 season will mark the 300th anniversary of Bach’s choral cantatas with the “The 300th Anniversary Project of Choral Cantatas”.
New members will be accepted from November 3 (Fri).
Details will be announced at a later date.
For the 2025-2026 season, Suntory Hall will be added as a new venue for the subscription concerts, with a schedule that includes three performances each at Tokyo Opera City and Suntory Hall. As in previous years, the season will begin with the St. Matthew Passion during Lent, followed by the Mass in B Minor, which drew a full house in 2024. Additionally, a new series titled “The Path to Beethoven” will commence, looking ahead to the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s passing in 2027. The 300-Year Chorale Cantata Project will also reach its grand finale, bringing us even closer to the essence of Bach’s music.
As for current members of our Regular, Society, and Friends programs for the 2024-2025 season, we will send out renewal information in early November. New memberships will open on Saturday, November 23. Further details will be announced later.
◆About the subscription concerts
“During the Holy Week in Japan, the St. Matthew Passion must resound.”
The 2025-26 season will be the 35th season since Music Director Masaaki Suzuki founded the Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) with this mission in mind. This year, we welcome rising tenor star Shimon Yoshida as the Evangelist and sought-after baritone Jochen Kupfer as Jesus. Additionally, the alto solo will be sung by Marianne Beate Kielland, marking the return of a female singer to the alto role.
This season also marks the 25th anniversary of the BCJ’s first performance of the Mass in B Minor. Under the baton of Principal Conductor Masato Suzuki, we welcome you to Suntory Hall, where it was first performed in 2000. In a time of unrest, the concluding “Dona nobis pacem” resonates with an indescribable richness.
In October, as part of “The 300th Anniversary of Bach’s Chorale Cantata” Project’s 8th performance, we will feature four splendid chorale cantatas composed in 1724. With her remarkable voice, Kristen Witmer will return to the BCJ stage.
As a prelude to the Advent season, we welcome you with the Christmas Oratorio in November. Originally performed over six days from Christmas through the New Year and Epiphany, this concert will present all six parts in one day. Take a moment to imagine what Christmas was like in Bach’s time and enjoy this extraordinary experience.
In January 2026, as we approach the 200th anniversary of his death in 2027, we launch the “Path to Beethoven” series, tracing the great composer’s journey. For this groundbreaking first concert, we present Beethoven’s early masterpieces, Symphony No. 1 and No. 2, along with a sinfonia by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who greatly influenced Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven himself. Masato Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan will portray the dynamic transition from the Baroque to the Classical era over the next three seasons.
In March 2026, we will conclude the project “The 300th Anniversary of Bach’s Chorale Cantata,” a profound two-year endeavour led by Masaaki Suzuki. For this final performance, we welcome countertenor Tim Mead, who starred to great acclaim in the BCJ’s opera series “Giulio Cesare” in 2023, as one of the soloists to crown this grand finale of the pilgrimage to the 40 chorale cantatas.
We welcome you to Tokyo Opera City and Suntory Hall for the 2025-26 season. Join us as the Bach Collegium Japan embarks on this new season, traversing history from Bach to Beethoven with boundless passion!
◆About The 300th Anniversary Project of Choral Cantatas
Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723, and from May of the following year, 1724, to the end of March of the following year, he composed exactly 40 special cantatas called “choral cantata”. Choral are hymns sung by the congregation in chorus, and although church cantatas are more or less related to choral, the cantatas of this year are called by this name because they had a special structure.
In fact, 40 choral cantatas were written in 1724 because that year fell exactly 200 years after 1524, when the religious reformer Martin Luther, in collaboration with many musicians, published several hymnals for the congregation to sing, It was recognized as the “year of the establishment of hymns. So this must have been a celebration of the bicentennial of the establishment of the hymnal. Now, 300 years later, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s hymnody and the 300th anniversary of Bach’s choral cantatas, we, the Bach Collegium Japan, would like to perform 40 choral cantatas during the two years from 2024 to 2025.
──Music Director Masaaki Suzuki