We end the 2026 programme in customary style with the Thames Consort in a programme centring on the music of J.S. Bach and bookended with two of the cantatas written (or in the case of BWV. 142, possibly arranged) for performance in church services at Leipzig, where he was Cantor. In between, Sharon Warnes plays the E major Violin Concerto and we hear the gorgeously mournful motet O Jesu Christ Mein’s Lebens Licht. Bach’s music is put into perspective by two works associated with his sometime mentor Dietrich Buxtehude.  The young Bach walked two hundred miles to study with him in Lübeck.

Two of our four soloist are recent winners of the BBC Young Chorister of the Year. Belinda Gifford-Guy (soprano) who has sung for us before, won the junior title in 2023. A former chorister at Wells Cathedral, she is a student at Wells Cathedral School. Our bass soloist Alastair Mucklow won the senior title in 2025. A former chorister at Magdalen College Oxford, he is a student at Magdalen College School.