Founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) brings together a choir and an orchestra of specialists in early music from around the world. With Masaaki Suzuki as Music Director and Masato Suzuki as Principal Conductor, the ensemble explores the musical heritage centred on Bach through historically informed performances on period instruments. BCJ celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2025.
Alongside its concert series in Japan, BCJ performs at leading international venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, the BBC Proms and Bachfest Leipzig. Highlights include a nine-city European tour in 2022, the closing concert of Bachfest Leipzig in 2023 and a return to the BBC Proms in 2024. In January and February 2025, BCJ toured seven cities in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany, with Mozart’s Requiem in Masato Suzuki’s own completion and edition as the principal work. The tour marked Masato’s first large-scale overseas tour conducting BCJ; Masaaki and Masato shared conducting duties at the two Spanish concerts.
BCJ’s recordings for BIS have earned international recognition. Its complete cycle of Bach’s church cantatas, begun in 1995 and completed in 2013 in 55 volumes, received an ECHO Klassik award in 2014. Recordings of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor and Bach’s St Matthew Passion won Gramophone Awards in 2017 and 2020 respectively. BCJ and Masaaki Suzuki jointly received the 45th Suntory Music Award for 2013.
Bach remains at the heart of BCJ’s work, while its repertoire also embraces opera and music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Its recordings include Beethoven’s Missa solemnis and Symphony No. 9, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, Lobgesang. Its 2020 performance of Handel’s Rinaldo, conducted by Masato Suzuki, received the 19th Yoshio Sagawa Music Award. Through vocal and instrumental programmes, opera and recordings, BCJ continues to explore the expressive possibilities of its choir and orchestra.