“Without Bach, I wouldn’t be a musician,” says Leonardo García-Alarcón. He conducts this Mass in B minor as a guest conductor, leading ensembles other than his own.
A work of a lifetime, the Mass took shape over thirty-five years, from 1714 to 1749. Bach gathered into it, through the principle of parody, pieces first conceived for his cantatas, and composed a Mass in the Catholic tradition on Lutheran soil. As early as 1818, Hans Georg Nägeli hailed it as the greatest musical work of art of all times and all peoples.
Leonardo García-Alarcón has conducted the Mass in Paris, at the Maison de la Radio, with the Orchestre Philharmonique and the Chœur de Radio France; in Montréal, as part of the Bach Montréal Festival, with the festival’s orchestra and choir (Prix Opus 2025, “Concert of the Year”), and then in Québec; in São Paulo, with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (Osesp) and its choir, a concert awarded the APCA prize for “Best Symphonic Concert”; and at the Verbier Festival, with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and the Chœur de Chambre de Namur. He will return to it at the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, with the Orchestre National du Capitole and the Chœur de Chambre de Namur, on 17 and 18 April 2027.
Johann Sebastian Bach — Mass in B minor — BWV 232
Concert lenght: 2 hours
For Toulouse
Leonardo García-Alarcón — Conductor
Giulia Bolcato — Soprano
Dara Savinova — Soprano
Hugh Cutting — Countertenor
Valerio Contaldo — Tenor
Andreas Wolf — Bass
Orchestre national du Capitole
Chœur de Chambre de Namur
2025 — Leonardo García-Alarcón won the Opus Prize for “Concert of the Year – Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Music” for conducting the Orchestra and Choir of the Bach Montréal International Festival in Bach’s Mass in B minor.
2025 — Leonardo García-Alarcón won the prestigious APCA prize (São Paulo Association of Art Critics) for “Best Symphonic Concert” for his conducting of Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (Osesp) and its choir.