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Bach Festival Leipzig

Bach Festival Leipzig

11 to 21 June 2020 - »BACH – We Are Family« – 150 events on 11 days

Every year in June the city of Leipzig honours its important Thomas Cantor Johann Sebastian Bach with the Bach Festival. It pursues a tradition which Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy had already established. Leipzig celebrates a very special Bach Festival in the 2020 season: From 11 to 21 June 2020, under the motto "BACH - We Are Family", some 50 Bach choirs, societies, festivals and associations from six continents will travel to the city on the river Pleiße to celebrate the composer where he worked most. There they will walk the same paths of the widely ramified Bach family of musicians, who met once a year in the 17th and 18th centuries at a certain location in Thuringia to make music together. Well-known performers from all over the world can be seen at over 150 events during eleven days, including the St. Thomas Choir and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. During the Bach Festival, they will perform in 18 concerts and 15 church services and masses all 66 cantatas of the "Choralkantaten Jahrgang 1724/1725" at Bach's original places of work. Pre-sales will start on 15 November 2019.



The old Bach Monument, St. Thomas Church

The world's oldest Bach monument has stood close to the St. Thomas Church since 1843.
View of the illuminated St. Thomas Church in twilight, where the famous St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig perform, and which constitutes one of Leipzig, the Music City's most prominent attractions, cultural venue

St. Thomas Church

The St. Thomas Church is a house of worship, place of music, home of the St. Thomas Choir and final resting place of Johann Sebastian Bach. It is, after the St. Nicholas Church, the second-most central church in Leipzig's city centre.
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Bach Museum

The museum gives you a deep look into the Leipzig-based life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach with its permanent exhibition. Learn about Bach across an exhibition area of 450 m².

Bach Festival Leipzig

Interior view of the St. Nicholas Church during a Leipzig Bach Festival concert in the Music City, cultural venue, sights
St. Nicholas Church is only one of the Bach Festival's venues. © Gert Mothes

The first Bach Festival took place in Leipzig in 1908. It was organized for the unveiling of the "New Bach Monument".

Selected pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived and worked in Leipzig from 1723 to his death in 1750 as the St. Thomas choirmaster, are performed.

Around 100 different events take place every year as part of the Leipzig Bach Festival.

Bach Competition

Award winners at the Bach competition with flowers, Leipzig, city of music, concert, events, festivals, culture
The Bach competition honours outstanding musicians. © Gert Mothes

The world's most important Johann Sebastian Bach competition for young interpreters was launched in 1950. Since 1996, it has been taking place every other year in June in three alternating subjects: piano, harpsichord and violin. 

The competition is open to instrumentalists and singers between the ages of 16 and 33.