The new festival director

Carsten Hinrichs was born in 1974. He studied musicology, German and Romance studies. From 2003 to 2011, he worked as a programme planner and press officer at the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, then from 2009-2012 at the Potsdam-Sanssouci Music Festival. Since May 2019, he has once again been responsible for planning the programme and artistic coordination as Chief Dramaturg, and has been Deputy Artistic Director since the beginning of 2023.

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Carsten Hinrichs - Festival director of the Thuringian Bach Festival, ©Jens Haentzschel ©

Mr Hinrichs, what is your vision as you take up your position as the director of the Thuringia Bach Festival?

The Thuringia Bach Festival is now in its 21st year. It is a successful event that has been expertly positioned by my predecessor. Nevertheless, we are facing challenges when it comes to persuading people to visit classical music concerts. I have met the Bach Festival’s audience and I have observed them closely. What inspires people when they come to us? Their experience on the day, how they are received, how relevant it feels to them – all of this will become increasingly important over the coming years. For me, the best thing about music is that it can be experienced immediately and is created live, while I am present.

The theme of this year’s Thuringia Bach Festival is ‘The end and the beginning of all music’. What is the intention behind that?

It is a famous quote from Max Reger that we have inverted. Reger reverently described Bach as “The beginning and end of all music”. By turning that on its head, we would like to shatter the prevailing notion that everything is heading towards some final ending. The end is merely a turning point before a new beginning, which isn’t visible yet. One example of such a radical upheaval would be the bloody end of the Peasants’ War 500 years ago, and the associated cry for freedom to which Thuringia’s state exhibition is dedicated, and which we are bringing to life in music with a concert in Mühlhausen. 

The 2025 Thuringia Bach Festival features more than 60 events across Thuringia. What sort of things can visitors look forward to?

Among the many Bach festivals around the world, the unique selling proposition of the Thuringia Bach Festival is its wealth of authentic locations associated with Johann Sebastian Bach and his extended family. Over the Easter period, this doesn’t just attract people from Thuringia but also tour groups from all across Europe. This year, we are taking a look at Bach’s composing workshop, as 1725 was a major turning point in his work. Had he been planning to set an adaptation of the Passion to music? On 15 April in Schmalkalden, we will be performing an interpretation based on a Bach fragment from that year. Bach himself decided to rework his St John Passion instead and heighten the drama with additional arias. You can hear the result on Good Friday in Arnstadt. During the Easter celebrations, which lasted three days back then, Bach performed three completely different cantatas. They can all be enjoyed on Easter Saturday at St George’s Church in Eisenach. For me, that is one of the highlights of the festival programme.

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Ricercar Consort, Herderkirche Church Weimar (2019), ©Andreas Beetz, Thüringer Bachwochen e.V.

Bach’s music is regarded as timeless, but the festival aims to appeal to a wide variety of people, from music experts to families. What role do musical freedom and modern interpretations play within the Thuringia Bach Festival?

There are two reasons why the up-and-coming generation of early music performers has been making a huge impact. There was a whole lot of incredible new music to discover and the musicians playing baroque music had to interact completely differently and improvise live. So they became much more involved in the performance than they had been for the classical romantic repertoire. The musicians are more prepared to try something new, to experiment with the setting of the performance and generally to take risks. So whether we’re putting early music in the new rooms of the KONTOR for our opening event on 13 April, going for an Easter walk through the Ilm Park with folk music instruments, or if David Bergmüller uses electronic means to extract every last beat from his lute for a club concert at the Trafo in Jena on 1 May – it’s all about the same thing: waking people up and drawing them into the moment.

Would Johann Sebastian Bach have approved of such musical experiments and free spaces?

When you read that the young Bach walked all the way to Lübeck to listen to Dietrich Buxtehude, an eminent proponent of the North German organ school, and that when he returned to Arnstadt the congregation were outraged and confused by the newfangled and discordant harmonies to which he was setting his hymns, then the answer is most definitely yes!

Johann Sebastian Bach and Thuringia are inextricably linked. Why does the fascination with Bach remain unbroken to this day?

I don’t know any musician to whom Bach’s work does not appeal, or who doesn’t at the very least feel creatively challenged by it. Bach’s music is universal, it even reaches across cultural boundaries. He has captured something transpersonal, something intrinsically human in his compositions that offers space to each and every one of us. And it is nice to think that Bach honed his musical abilities here in Thuringia, on the shoulders of an extended family of musicians, within a network that supported and educated him.

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Schumann Quartett, Schießhaus Weimar (2019), ©Andreas Beetz, Thüringer Bachwochen e.V.

What sort of concert are you likely to attend in your own time? Does the programme of Jena’s Kulturarena appeal to you?

Definitely! I feel at home with any sort of classical music, from the Renaissance to the present day. But I’m not at all dogmatic when something arouses my curiosity. I’m just as likely to be gripped by a track from Daft Punk, a film score by Morricone or by some jazz. 

Finally, let’s consider the future of the Thuringia Bach Festival. In what direction would the baroque festival like to be heading over the coming years?

If we can manage – even after all the challenges and upheavals that we may face – to keep developing in such a way that we’re able to celebrate the festival’s 25th anniversary in 2029 with concerts that bring people together, touch them emotionally and inspire them, then we will have achieved everything we set out to do.

Thank you very much for the interview, Mr Hinrichs.
 

Interview: Jessika Fichtel is a freelance copywriter, blogger and book author from Eisenach. She creates authentic content with passion and expertise.
Header picture: Zentralheize Erfurt, ©Candy Welz, Thüringer Bachwochen e.V.