Tonight’s concert begins on the New Year’s Day Feast before joining the Magi on their journey to Bethlehem to honour the baby Jesus.
The Evangelist’s narration interweaves with dramatic choruses, chorales and reflective arias from the cast of soloists.
Václav Luks, the founder of Prague’s Collegium 1704, returns to the OAE following critically acclaimed collaborations in Bach’s Mass in B Minor at the Southbank Centre and in the pit at Glyndebourne Opera.
He opens the concert with a motet by fellow Czech Jan Dismas Zelenka. Bach almost certainly knew Zelenka and held his music in high regard for its inventive harmony and what Luks describes as its ‘extraordinary power’.
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment & Václav Luks conductor
Sofia Kirwan-Baez / Helen Charlston
Guy Cutting / Florian Störtz
Choir of the Age of Enlightenment
Sunday 6th Dec 2026, 7pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall, LONDON