Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

The Sydney Cantata Project closes its 2026 season at the beautiful All Saints’ Woollahra, with an afternoon of Bach on period instruments.

📅 Saturday 21 November
🕒 3:00 PM
📍 All Saints’ Anglican Church, Woollahra

Our final concert for the year features a rare guest in the baroque orchestra: the slide trumpet, a brass instrument with a gentle, singing tone that Bach used to add colour to his chorale melodies. It shines in two of his cantatas. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 62 is a radiant Advent cantata built on Luther’s ancient hymn welcoming the coming Saviour. Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe BWV 162 is an intimate meditation on the parable of the wedding feast. Alongside them is a discovery: Ja, mir hast du Arbeit gemacht JLB 5 by Johann Sebastian’s Meiningen cousin Johann Ludwig Bach (1677–1731). J.S. Bach admired this music enough to perform it himself in Leipzig. Coming just a week before Advent Sunday, this programme offers luminous, deeply felt music to end the year, performed by leading Australian early music musicians.