Bach, the Universe and Everything continues with ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’ (Awake, calls the voice to us), one of Bach’s best–known cantatas, thanks in part to the famous chorale fantasia with which it opens.

Popularly known as ‘Sleepers Awake!’, and, although written for November, Bach’s Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’it has come to be closely associated with the Advent season. At its heart are two duets for soprano and bass soloists depicting a dialogue between Jesus and the Soul.

Our guest speaker, Affelia Wibinoso (from Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) will introduce her work studying the x-rays given off planets to better understand their atmosphere, surfaces, rings, moon, magnetic fields and aurora.

About Bach, the Universe and Everything

This is a concert series with a difference. Across six Sunday morning events, we explore the human desire to understand our place in the cosmos, guided by the work of JS Bach – composer and intergalactic genius – through his 200 cantatas. As NASA shares images from the very first moments of time, we invite you to join us on a cosmic journey: each event is built around a Bach cantata and a talk from a guest scientist, writer or broadcaster, alongside choral and instrumental music.

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