About Bach, the Universe and Everything

Is there life out there? It may be some time before we’re making reservations at Milliways (aka The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy ‘trilogy’), but astronomers and scientists are increasingly finding signs of life in the solar system and beyond. We set off in search of answers once again.

Guided by the work of JS Bach, composer and intergalactic genius, our mission is to explore the human desire to better understand our place in the cosmos through his 200 cantatas. Each concert is built around a Bach cantata and a talk from a guest scientific speaker, alongside choral and instrumental music by other baroque and renaissance composers.

Here Comes The Sun – Sun 21 Jan

In the first Bach, the Universe & Everything of 2024, the OAE perform Bach’s cantata Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 3, a work that begins elegiacally before it turns fiery then joyous. Our guest speaker is Dan Simpson, who has recently been poet-in-residence at Kielder Observatory and explores ideas around how scientific methods can still enhance our sense of wonder and beauty.

Please note change to advertised programme: Unfortunately Professor Lucie Green is unable to speak at this event. We are grateful to Dan Simpson for stepping in at short notice.

This performance will last approximately 1 hour, without an interval.

‘He was wrong to think he could now forget that the big, hard, oily, dirty, rainbow-hung Earth on which he lived was a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot lost in the unimaginable infinity of the Universe.’

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy