Performance by Bach Akademie Australia
Wednesday, 2 April 2025
Government House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC
Bujari gamarruwa
Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura
In greeting you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of the land on which Government House stands, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. I extend that respect to the Elders of all parts from which you have travelled.
Chief Justice[1], Consul-General[2], Former Justices[3], Former Minister of State[4], Deputy Chief Magistrate,[5] friends, distinguished guests all,
On 28 December 2015 Madeleine Easton dreamed that she was conducting Bach’s cantata Wachet auf on the City Recital Hall stage. Waking at 4.30 am, the dream had become a vision—a dedicated Bach orchestra in Australia.[6] On 29 December, at the same time as the previous morning—4:30am—she woke again, this time with the name for her orchestra—Bach Akademie Australia—“in [her] head’”, as she says “like it had always been there!”.[7]
In the morning, she ran the idea past her sister, which all ideas should be, to ensure they are good, and it was confirmed. It felt right.
Returning to England where she had been playing for 15 years, her longtime mentor the eminent early music specialist Sir John Eliot Gardiner, perhaps best known as the artistic director of the Monteverdi Choir,[8] said, in what I will translate in the Australian vernacular—‘go for it’.[9]
And so, in April 2017, the very first Bach Akademie concert was performed in Sydney to a sold-out audience and to critical acclaim.[10] Today, the Orchestra is amongst Australia’s—if not (if I am to be honest and entirely unbiased!) the world’s—foremost exponents of Bach’s repertoire in all its vivid, enthralling, and captivating facets.
Over the 8 years since, Madeline, as Artistic Director, has exposed Australian audiences to the magic of Bach, in all its broad sweep of Bach’s creative output, the diversity of its forms, the emotions and themes it elicits and evokes.
The first of this year’s Bach Akademie programs, of which tonight’s recital is but a taster, is entitled ‘The Countertenor—Bach’s Holy Spirit’.
This titling—Bach’s Holy Spirit—calls attention to Bach’s own faith, which in every sense, was the essence of his genius of which his sacred cantatas are at its heart. More than 200 of his cantatas, written to be performed as part of the annual cycle of the Lutheran liturgical calendar, survive.[11] Each cantata is signed off: Soli deo Gloria—‘for the Glory of God alone’.[12]
The conduit tonight through which we are privileged to experience the spiritual message in Bach’s cantatas, as well as one by that other famous Bach, Johann Sebastian’s older cousin Johann Christoph[13]—is the prodigiously talented American countertenor Reginald Mobley.
Born in Gainesville, Florida and raised by his grandparents, Reginald grew up singing in church. In sixth grade he discovered Bach—although this would be, as he calls it, an illicit passion. His grandmother hated classical music, and young Reginald would hide Bach CDs amongst the jazz and gospel ones he borrowed from the library, smuggling them home to listen in secret on his Sony Walkman in his room.[14]
He went to Oakwood College—now University—in Alabama on a trumpet scholarship but, once accepted “didn’t touch the trumpet”, switching immediately to voice[15]. His teachers couldn’t decide whether he was a tenor or baritone until one of them overheard him singing falsetto in a barbershop quartet and picked it straightaway “You”, he said, “[are] a countertenor”.[16]
And from that epiphany, his fate was sealed, rising to international prominence as one of the world’s finest countertenors.
He has been nominated for a Grammy and performed on countless stages on both sides of the Atlantic, including at King Charles’s Coronation[17].
Madeleine and Reginald met in 2016 when he was asked to join the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir for a world tour of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 2016[18]; Madeleine was leading the second orchestra[19]. They were a musical match made in heaven and from the outset Madeleine schemed to bring Reginald to Australia.[20]
And so here we are today, 8 years later, and Bach Akademie Australia has its first international guest. And we, the opportunity to hear some of the greatest expressions of spirituality ever written[21], as well as a couple of Bach’s most beautiful dance movements.[22]
Tonight, Bach Akademie with Reginald Mosley will take you on a short journey to the sublime. Thank you Madeleine and thank you to all here tonight; your generosity in supporting Bach Akademie Australia is integral to ensuring that its mission—of bringing the music of Bach and his peers in all its glory to audiences far and wide—continues.
[1] The Honourable Andrew Bell, Chief Justice of NSW, Supreme Court of NSW
[2] Ms Christine Elder, Consul-General of the United States of America
[3] The Honourable Graham Barr KC, Former Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW; and the Honourable Mary Finn, Former Justice of the Family Court of Australia
[4] The Honourable Prue Goward AO, Former Minister of State
[5] His Honour Deputy Chief Magistrate Theo Tsavdaridis, Local Court of NSW
[6] “At the end of 2015, I was home for Christmas in Sydney. On the 28th December at exactly 4:30am, I woke up bolt upright with the idea of forming a dedicated Bach orchestra here in Australia. There was nothing like it here, and it felt right.”: Madeleine Easton, quoted in ‘Bach Akademie Australia Presents Bach – The Mind of a Genius’, Northern Beaches Mums website, available here; Steve Moffat, ‘Akademie Puts on Spectacular Celebration of Bach’s Musical Offerings’, The Daily Telegraph online, 25 November 2023, available here
[7] “The next night at weirdly exactly 4:30am, I woke up again and the name ‘Bach Akademie Australia’ just appeared in my head, like it had always been there!” Madeleine Easton, quoted in ‘Bach Akademie Australia Presents Bach – The Mind of a Genius’, Northern Beaches Mums website, available here.
[8] “Easton was born in Lane Cove but left in 2000 for London where she has been mentored as an orchestra member and musical director by renowned early music specialist Sir John Eliot Gardiner. On April 21 [2018], Easton will perform with the Bach Akademie Australia which she founded last year [2017]. But she will return to Australia for good in December [2018], with plans to develop the orchestra’s full potential”: Elizabeth Fortesque, ‘Madeleine Easton Plans to Return Home to Shape Bach Akademie Australia into a Real Musical Force’, Daily Telegraph online, 13 April 2018, available here
[9] “Madeleine, you’re a director. You know it and I know it. Go and direct! I will back you and be your patron”: Sir John Eliot Gardiner, quoted by Madeleine Easton in ‘Bach Akademie Australia Presents Bach – The Mind of a Genius’, Northern Beaches Mums website, available here
[10] ‘The Orchestra’, Bach Akademie Australia website, available here
[11] ‘The Story of Bach Cantatas’, Classic FM online, available here
[12] ‘The Story of Bach Cantatas’, Classic FM online, available here
[13] Johann Christoph Bach was Johann Sebastian Bach’s father’s cousin, so, technically, the more famous Bach’s 1st cousin once removed: Christoff Wolff, ‘Bach, Johann Christoph’, Grove Music online, available here
[14] Clive Paget, ‘An Illicit Passion’, Limelight, 24 March 2025, available here
[15] Reginald Mobley, quoted in Meg Bragle, ‘Reginald Mobley on his Grammy Nod, and the Black American Music That “Links us Together”’, WRTI 90.1 online, 1 February 2024, available here
[16] Clive Paget, ‘An Illicit Passion’, Limelight, 24 March 2025, available here
[17] Clive Paget, ‘An Illicit Passion’, Limelight, 24 March 2025, available here
[18] Provided information.
[19] Clive Paget, ‘An Illicit Passion’, Limelight, 24 March 2025, available here
[20] Clive Paget, ‘An Illicit Passion’, Limelight, 24 March 2025, available here
[21] Johann Christoph Bach’s Lamento Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte; Johann Sebastian Bach’s 1st Aria from Cantata BWV 82 Ich habe genug and Wer Sünde tut, der ist vom Teufel from Cantata BWV 54 Widerstehe doch der Sünde; and a ‘spiritual of Reginald’s choice’.
[22] The elegant Minuet and high-spirited Badinerie from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No 2 in B Minor.