Workshop: J. S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion

In this day-long workshop we explored different ways of being in the body musically through Bach’s monumental Passion setting. The workshop involved a large number of students and early career professionals, many of whom had never played the piece before. We talked about hearts and tears, pulse, dissonance, leadership and dance, and ended up with a spontaneous full tutti rendition of the aria ‘Mache Dich, mein Herze, rein’ - a deeply moving demonstration of the power of affective contagion.