Bach Choir goes back to its beginnings to celebrate 150 years

The Bach Choir is celebrating its 150th anniversary by returning its origins with a special performance of JS Bach's Mass in B minor.

Founded in 1876 in order to give the UK premiere of this monumental work, the choir emerged at a time when Bach was still regarded in Britain as a composer admired chiefly by musicians rather than embraced by the wider public. Presenting the Mass in full was considered a bold undertaking by music-lovers in Victorian England, revealing the emotional breadth, structural ambition and spiritual force of Bach’s choral writing to mass audiences on a scale rarely experienced before.

Since that founding performance, The Bach Choir has been a leading force in embedding Bach’s choral music into British concert life, shaping performance traditions and broadening audiences for works once considered austere or specialist.

For its return to the Mass in B minor, The Bach Choir will be conducted by its music director David Hill MBE and joined by period-instrument ensemble Florilegium, long-standing collaborators on acclaimed performances of the St Matthew Passion. Four leading soloists – soprano Nardus Williams, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, tenor Sam Furness and bass Neal Davies – complete the line-up.

The performance will be an apt focal point for this year's anniversary: few ensembles can trace their origins so precisely to a single work – or claim to have changed how a nation listens to it.

The Bach Choir will perform JS Bach’s Mass in B minor at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday 26 May 2026. Ahead of this concert, The Bach Choir will host a Come and Sing Day exploring selected movements from this work in London, led by David Hill, on 28 March 2026. Open to all music-reading singers.