Montreal celebrates Bach in style for its 20th anniversary

From 4 November to 9 December 2026, the Montreal International Bach Festival celebrates its 20th edition with a particularly ambitious programme.

Founded on the initiative of Alexandra Scheibler, the festival lasted only a few days in its early years but now attracts more than 17,000 festival-goers annually. For its anniversary edition, Montreal will welcome Sir András Schiff in The Art of Fugue, Vox Luminis and Lionel Meunier in Monteverdi’s Vespers, Léa Desandre, Thomas Dunford and Ensemble Jupiter, Correspondances and Sébastien Daucé, Augustin Hadelich, Chris Thile, and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. John Butt will conduct Handel’s Water Music and Bach’s Magnificat, while Kent Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal return to the Christmas Oratorio, twenty years after the beginning of their collaboration with the Festival.

But the most spectacular project of this anniversary edition already looks to the future. In partnership with Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, the Festival is launching a complete cycle of Bach’s organ works: sixteen concerts spread over four years, running until 2029, and bringing together organists from eight countries around the monumental Rudolf von Beckerath organ. Three opening concerts will mark autumn 2026: Christian Schmitt on 8 November, Vincent Boucher on the 15th – including two chaconnes attributed to Bach and discovered in 2025 – followed by Benjamin Alard on 29 November.

It is a particularly eloquent way of celebrating twenty years of the Festival: not simply by looking back, but by embarking on a Bach project that will resonate across four seasons.

Official website: https://festivalbachmontreal.com