The leader and founding Artistic Director of Bach Akademie Australia, Madeleine Easton, trades her seat at the first desk for the conductor’s rostrum in the ensemble’s celebratory Magnificat.

Easton directs her hand-picked ensemble of Baroque experts comprising eight singers and 18 musicians performing on period instruments, led for this concert by Simone Slattery. The program comprises two works by J S Bach, the cantata O ewiges Feuer BWV 34 and Magnificat BWV 243, linked by three brief excerpts from Cantata No 6 of the Christmas Oratorio BWV 248. Easton brings to the performance her substantial performance experience and interpretive and musicological knowledge of Baroque music, gained from years of working with some of the elite period ensembles in Europe and the UK.

Bach Akademie Australia

Two days short of Advent and with live performance returning, the mood is celebratory. The  ensemble opens its account repurposing for the season the cantata O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe (O eternal fire, o source of love), composed for Pentecost Sunday and later used for a kick-up-your-heels style wedding cantata. It’s a neatly structured cantata for four voice parts in five movements....