Ten years ago I took myself on possibly the nerdiest holiday ever conceived – a homage to all the places where J.S. Bach had lived and worked. It was a formative experience.

I had finished my music degree at the University of Melbourne with a minor study in German, and had some time before starting postgraduate study in Cambridge. I had fallen in love with Bach’s music back at high school and this only deepened in Melbourne singing the cantatas, motets and St Matthew Passion. I had been lucky to travel to Leipzig as a choral scholar in the Choir of Trinity of College and to sing a service in the famous Thomaskirche where Bach spent most of his working life. 

Sydney Chamber Choir Artistic Director Sam Allchurch

Sydney Chamber Choir Artistic Director Sam Allchurch. Photo supplied

I wanted to see all the other places that I had read about – his birthplace in Eisenach and his early appointments to churches in Mulhausen and Arnstadt. Thanks to the efficient Deustche Bahn and the fact that all these places are very close to...