Early music ensemble Salut! Baroque has announced details of its 2024 Concert Series, a year of musical journeys designed to take audiences beyond the notes and into the stories behind musical masterpieces of the past that continue to enchant us today.

Salut! Baroque. Photo supplied.

The Series begins in February (Canberra on the 14th^; Sydney on the 16th) with a celebration of the music of JS Bach, titled, appropriately enough, The Genius.

CPE Bach described his father’s house as “like a pigeonry, and just as full of life”, with Johann Sebastian keeping an open house where “no master of music was likely to travel through [Leipzig] without making my father’s acquaintance and letting himself be heard by him”.

The complex character behind the music we admire was not always so well regarded during his life. It was often Bach’s rivals who enjoyed the greater success. This program places the genius of Bach’s music beside the composers who most impacted his life and work.

This concert brings together a stellar line-up: soprano Anna Fraser, recorder players...