FESTIVAL BACH MONTRÉAL

Exceptional ensembles from Québec have taken active role in the festival over the years: Orchestre symphonique de Montréal with Kent Nagano, Orchestre Métropolitain conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Arion Baroque Orchestra, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Pallade Musica, Ensemble Masque, Les Violons du Roy, Suzie LeBlanc, Clavecin en concert, and many more.

What would we, as human beings, do without music? In these times of pandemic and war in Europe, I think the importance of music is even more obvious, whether it is to sort out our feelings, to bring comfort or simply to entertain and please us. We have also learned in recent times that it is not a given to organize concerts with an audience present, and how special it is to sit in a concert hall and experience artists and art together. It is in this spirit that we are pleased to welcome you to the Festival and are looking forward to providing you with special musical moments again this year.

As a prelude to the Festival, we are honored to invite Sir András Schiff performing the Goldberg Variations. We will open the Festival with the Gaechinger Cantorey of the International Bach Academy Stuttgart with the St. John Passion. The Festival Orchestra and Choir will, of course, return to perform Bach's Magnificat under the direction of internationally renowned conductor Masaaki Suzuki.

And be sure to visit us at the Off-Festival Bach this year. Concerts and surprises await you in a very special atmosphere. All events at the Off-Bach are free of charge. Please check our website and social networks regularly for the latest news. 

Passion has always been the driving force behind my work. Added to this is the fact that music is a necessity. We need to keep this idea close to our hearts, to never stop to experience beauty and beautiful art, especially in today’s world.  

We are happy to be able to present you with an exciting program and, on behalf of the entire team, we wish you an unforgettable musical adventure!

Alexandra Scheibler
Founder and Artistic Director


Alexandra Scheibler founded the Bach-Academie de Montréal in 2003 and has been artistic director of Festival Bach Montréal since 2007. She was awarded a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Hamburg with a dissertation on religious aspects in Leonard Bernstein’s life and work. She was employed in various German public broadcasters in classical music departments as well acting as assistant director for several productions at the State Opera Bern in Switzerland. As a freelance author Alexandra Scheibler wrote radio features and programme notes. In Cologne and Hamburg, she studied violin and viola and played in numerous orchestras and chamber music ensembles under such conductors as Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Frank Beerman and Alun Francis.

In October 2019 the President of the Federal Republic of Germany awarded the Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande) to Alexandra Scheibler.

Classical Music

Were it not for classical music, my ill-timed life would have robbed me of some of the greatest emotions I have experienced while listening to the musical masterpieces of past centuries.

I was raised in a family in which classical music was absent. It was a nun in high school who introduced me to the music of Mozart and Bach, opening the whole territory of sacred music to me.

So, under the influence of my dear nun, I decided to buy my first classical record—Bach, it goes without saying, her favorite musician.

I confess that Bach contributed to my mystical impulses to such an extent that I believed I was destined to become a contemplative nun. My attraction to classical music also provided a means of consoling myself for the sufferings of my adolescence.

Thanks to this music, I found an entryway into high culture. Though I still consider myself a cultural parvenu in the literal and figurative sense of the term, of course.

The present era is unkind to the ideas of elevating one’s spirit, one’s aesthetic awareness, the deep sense of delving into the intangible and raising the bar.

I fear that this current triviality—the obsession with the self as a standard of quality, the degradation of the few values without which artists are merely manipulated and robotic—is endangering our musical heritage.

If classical music ends up becoming the poor relation of creative expression, it will also be a planetary catastrophe. Another one, alas, in these times when music should still serve to temper our behaviour, humanize our social and emotional relationships, and keep up our feeling of hope.

Denise Bombardier