Bach Akademie Australia is opening its 2026 season with program that spotlights a compact yet formidable corner of J.S. Bach’s output – the motets.

Bach Akademie Australia’s founder and leader Madeleine Easton talks to Limelight about the combined power of works never meant to be played together.

Madeleine Easton, Australian World Orchestra concertmaster, holding her violin.

Madeleine Easton. Photo © Nick Gilbert

Composed for funeral or memorial services in Leipzig from the 1720s, Bach’s surviving motets hold the unique distinction of being his only vocal works to remain in continuous performance since 1750. Intricate and complex, they became prized as pedagogical tools, further cementing their importance.

It’s likely that Bach never imagined them to be heard as a set, but laced together, the motets create a patchwork portrait of a composer at his most concentrated: testing the limits of polyphony, shaping music around language, and finding moments of joy and transcendence in texts written for the most sombre of occasions.

They also stand among Bach’s most exacting achievements, extraordinary for their complexity, technical demands and emotional intensity.

So it comes as no surprise to hear that Madeleine Easton, hasn’t had much of a summer...