Cambridge Festival: J. S. Bach in the Flesh
22 March 2023 · Emmanuel College Chapel, Cambridge
A public performance workshop presented by Margaret Faultless and Bettina Varwig.
With
Nicholas Mulroy (Tenor)
Grace Scott Deuchar (Oboe)
Rachel Stroud (Violin)
Joe Reynolds (Violoncello)
George Herbert (Organ)
In this workshop, our audience was invited to hear and feel Bach’s music as an emotional force that can profoundly affect the bodies, minds and spirits of those who encounter it. We talked through some of the powerful ways in which this music could bring about bodily and spiritual transformation in Bach’s own time, and experimented with harnessing this affective power as performers and listeners today. We tried out different ways of embodying the emotive force of this music in the live moment, producing some surprising and marvellous moments of musical intensity.