International Bach Chamber Music Festival
The International Bach Chamber Music Festival was founded in 2001 with the aim of promoting the chamber music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the works of his contemporaries and sons, as well as fostering historically informed performance practices of early music in Latvia. The festival is organised by the Bach Music Foundation.
The artistic concept of the festival is centred on the chamber music genre, highlighting the intimate and diverse nature of Bach’s oeuvre. Alongside well-known works, the festival programmes feature rarely performed chamber music by Johann Sebastian Bach, compositions by his contemporaries and sons, as well as works by contemporary composers inspired by Bach’s personality and music. The festival regularly presents new interpretations and world premieres of newly commissioned works.
The festival’s concerts have featured internationally acclaimed early music performers and ensembles whose work is associated with the leading concert venues and centres of European musical life. Riga has welcomed such renowned ensembles as Vox Luminis (Belgium), the baroque ensemble Masques (France), Collegium Vocale Gent (Belgium), Freiburger Barockorchester (Germany), the Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO) (Finland), as well as Christina Pluhar and the ensemble L’Arpeggiata.
The festival has also hosted outstanding soloists, including lute virtuoso Thomas Dunford (France), baroque violinists Théotime Langlois de Swarte and Amandine Beyer (France), viola da gamba interpreters Jordi Savall (Spain) and Paolo Pandolfo (Italy), violinist Manfredo Kraemer (Germany/Argentina), as well as organist and conductor Ton Koopman (Netherlands) and many other internationally recognised artists.
A significant role in the festival’s concert programmes is played by historical venues. Concerts take place in Riga’s cultural and historical buildings and concert halls, including the Great Guild, the Small Guild, the Art Museum “Riga Bourse”, the Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation, the Latvian National Museum of History at Riga Castle, St. John’s Church, and Riga Cathedral. The architecture and acoustics of these spaces create a unique context for the performance of baroque music.
An important chapter in the festival’s history has been its collaboration with the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, where organ and harpsichord students have performed concerts within the festival programme for many years. These events have provided young musicians with the opportunity to perform alongside experienced artists and gain professional concert experience within an international festival environment.
In recent years, collaboration with the new generation of artists has expanded through festival events at the Emīls Dārziņš Concert Hall, featuring students of the National School of Arts of Latvia. These events involve not only young musicians, but also dance and visual arts students, creating an interdisciplinary dialogue between different fields of art inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s music and personality. In this way, the festival continues to support the involvement of the younger generation in professional artistic life while building a connection between the traditions of early music and contemporary arts education.