Bach Consort Wien

Founded in 1999, the Bach Consort Vienna quickly developed into one of Austria's most important Baroque ensembles under the direction of Ruben Dubrovsky.

Based in Vienna, the ensemble performs regularly at the Vienna Musikverein and the Theater an der Wien. It has also made guest appearances at numerous renowned festivals and in major concert halls, including the Mozarteum Salzburg, the Brucknerhaus Linz, the Baroque Days at Melk Abbey, the Carinthian Summer (A), the Handel Festival Halle, the RheinVokal Festival, Schwetzingen, the Philharmonie Essen, the Philharmonie Cologne, the Bach Festival Stuttgart and the Potsdam Music Festival (Germany).

International concert tours have also taken the ensemble to Winterthur (Switzerland), the MilanoTorino Festival and Ancona (Italy), the Dubrovnik Summer Festival (Croatia), the Palau de la Música Valencia, the Teatro Real de Madrid and the Palau de la Música Barcelona (Spain), the Oeiras Festival in Lisbon (Portugal) and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (ARG).

The Bach Consort Wien has remained true to its chamber music origins to this day. Concertmaster Agnes Stradner brings the core members together to form a variety of chamber music ensembles. After years of concert series in historic halls in Vienna (Palais Eschenbach, Hofburgkapelle), the ensemble can now be heard regularly performing highlights of Baroque chamber music such as the Brandenburg Concertos in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Often in dialogue with other art forms such as dance and literature, the richness of colour and joie de vivre of the Baroque are evident in concert programmes ranging from Bach's organ trio sonatas to playful Baroque improvisation in dialogue with modern dance.

A milestone was the Austrian premiere of Porpora's Polifemo at the Theater an der Wien. This was followed by numerous productions at the Kammeroper, such as Handel's Orlando, Vinci/Handel's Semiramide, the first Viennese production on original instruments of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, Gassmann's Gli Uccellatori, Salieri's La scuola de΄gelosi, Porpora's Arianna in Nasso, a pasticcio from Purcell to Handel's Rinaldo, followed by a guest performance at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

There is lively collaboration with soloists such as Emma Kirkby, Bernarda Fink, Christiane Karg, Franco Fagioli, Michael Schade, Andreas Scholl, Vivica Genaux, Florian Boesch, Terry Wey, Antonio Giovannini, Daniel Johannsen and Christophe Coin. Guest conductors have included Alan Curtis, Stefan Gottfried, Attilio Cremonesi and Markellos Chryssikos.

Since 2014, the Bach Consort Wien's Easter concerts have been broadcast worldwide by ORF, 3sat and many other TV stations. Live recordings of Monteverdi's Selva morale e spirituale (DVD, ORF) and Handel's Messiah (CD, Gramola/DVD, Naxos) have been released, as well as Pace e Guerra with countertenor Terry Wey (CD-Sony/Harmonia Mundi) and Vidala - Argentina and Roots of European Baroque (CD, Gramola), which was nominated twice for the German Record Critics' Award, and in 2018 two live recordings with works by Antonio Vivaldi, interpreted by Vivica Genaux (CD, Sony) and Andreas Scholl (CD, Gramola).