Each year, Sir John Eliot Gardiner appears with a varying array of international stars of the early music world that have won recognition as leading specialists in the field of historical performance. These reasons alone, however, would hardly be sufficient to justify the existence of yet another festival devoted to early music and Bach.

John Eliot Gardiner, the architect of the festival, has therefore articulated this new project around the following concept: instead of the festival being based on a fixed calendar each year, it will revolve around specific religious festivals and other commemorations. The dates of the concerts will therefore vary, depending on the central theme of the programme. The central focus of Soli Deo Gloria 2007 is Bach’s Michaelmas cantatas.

The cantatas that Bach composed for the feast of St Michael will be performed by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner on 29 September. In the festival’s opening concert on 28 September Gardiner will conduct the same musicians in a programme of works from the Bach Archives, composed by various members of Bach’s prolific family. The second essential theme of the 2007 festival, Bach’s relationship with Italy, will be explored in three concerts.

On 30 September, the pianist Alexander Tharaud will give a recital including Bach’s Italian Concerto.  In 2005, his interpretation of the work won him a Choc du Monde de la Musique award. On 2 October, the Wien Akademie will offer a programme of cantatas and arrangements of Italian pieces by Bach under the direction of Martin Haselböck, with Patrick van Goethem as soloist. The high point of the Italian theme is a concert to be given on 5 October by the violinist Viktoria Mullova who, together with the Milanese ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, will perform works by Vivaldi, Sammartini, Bach and Handel.

Her recording of Vivaldi’s violin concertos was awarded the Diapason d’Or in 2005. The tenor Jochen Kowalski and the group Musiche Nuove will close the festival on 7th October. Over the next few years, John Eliot Gardiner is due to complete the release of the complete cycle of cantatas - recorded during his Bach Year Pilgrimage in 2000 - under his new record label which, like the festival, goes by the name of Soli Deo Gloria. John Eliot Gardiner will have a permanent link with the Soli Deo Gloria festival in his role as resident guest conductor, each year offering two different programmes.