Jonathan Rees will be performing excerpts of J.S. Bach's Cello Suites in between motets as part of our concert at St. George's Bristol next week, on Friday 7 June. We caught up with the baroque cellist during his preparations:

"I'll be trying to create the impression of a texture as rich as the choral texture of the motets, even though this is impossible!"

​Read the Q&A with Jon

​Ahead of our performance at St George's Bristol, ClassicFM shares a video of "the most divine music ever written". This recording of our 'Jesu, meine Freude' was filmed last year in June at the Barbican Bach Weekend. For more clips of the motets we performed, head over to our YouTube channel.

We're very excited that we can finally announce our biggest performance this year: an appearance at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in London on Wednesday 14 August 2019, in a late night Prom (no.38) at 10.15pm.

We will be performing some of JS Bach's most powerful and dramatic sacred cantatas: those for the Feast of St Michael and All Angels.  Here, trumpets and timpani are to the fore, and the battle between earth and heaven is vividly portrayed. 

Tickets go on sale on 11 May, and with 5,500 of them to sell, we hope that our loyal followers will alert as many of their friends, relations, and acquaintances as possible.  This is going to be a great leap in the history of Solomon's Knot!

Thomas Herford will be one of the notably two Evangelists in our St John Passion at Wigmore Hall, and later on at the Bachfest Leipzig. We caught up with the tenor during his preparations as Tom reflects on the famous role: 

"I imagine that we are a small group of Jesus’ disciples, gathering to recall and process the terrible events that we have recently witnessed." 

Read the Q&A with Tom

Just announced: this summer we will be ensemble-in-residence at the Ryedale Festival where we will give three concerts between 23 and 27 July 2019. Find out more

We are really excited to make our debut at London's Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 16 April. In the Holy week leading up to Easter, we'll present the lesser known 1725 version of JS Bach's St John Passion, which we'll perform as well at our return to the 2019 Bachfest Leipzig.

"Time and again zig-zagging choruses, lightly accompanied, sprang into fire almost as if by spontaneous combustion. Most exciting" ★★★★★ from Geoff Brown in his review for The Times (£)

"They feel the music as one body. That was one of the things that made this concert a joy." - wrote Ivan Hewett in his ★★★★ review for The Telegraph

"Inspirational, intensely dramatic performances of Bach and his predecessors" ★★★★★ from William Ruff in his review for the Nottingham Post

Also, ClassicFM paid us a visit during rehearsals and shared a Facebook Premiere of the opening chorus of Bach's Magnificat with its followers from all over the world. Happy Season's Greetings!

In the lead up to the festive season, we present 'Christmas in Leipzig' , a programme centered around Bach's ever-popular Magnificat with music from the three composers who were successive cantors at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig: Schelle, Kuhnau and Bach. Come to our concert at the beginning of Advent on Saturday 1 December at St Mary's Church in Nottingham or on Monday 10 December at Milton Court in London.

Here a little taste of Johann's Schelle's Advent cantata Machet die Tore weit

Writing in The Times, Anna Picard described our performance of motets by JS Bach and his father's cousin, Johann Christoph, as 'dazzling':

Virtuosic fioritura and vivid articulation of text and musical texture were combined in a performance of prayerfulness, playfulness and uninhibited, unmediated expressiveness from eight singers and the organist Michael Papadopoulos.  Read the full article here (£).

We were moved by the very warm response from the capacity audience at St Giles Cripplegate, and are especially grateful to Sir John Eliot Gardiner, who invited us to perform as part of his Bach Weekend at the Barbican in the first place.