GLENN GOULD BACH FELLOWSHIP
Awarded by
City of Weimar
Supported by
Philip Loubser Foundation
Managed by
Thuringia Bach Festival
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INTRODUCTION
The Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship honours the name of one of the world's most influential and iconic pianists. Famed for both his legendary performances of Bach and for his ground-breaking engagement with film and recording technology, the Fellowship seeks to emulate and celebrate these same qualities by helping a mature, established artist to recreate the music of the Baroque for the 21st Century. Using the most up-to-date technology, the Glenn Gould Bach Fellow will create over the course of the Fellowship an artistic artefact or series of artefacts that will capture their unique vision. Each two year Fellowship will thus enable an outstanding musician to realise an artistic vision of stature and in the process make a statement about the music of the Baroque that endures.
At certain moments in certain eras, a figure appears who both challenges our preconceptions and transforms the very way we view a subject - and Glenn Gould was one such figure. His engagement with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach was particularly influential, resulting in a body of work that continues to inspire and fascinate to this day. The Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship celebrates Glenn Gould's achievement by enabling new, visionary artists to re-create the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and of the Baroque more generally for the 21st century.
Photograph: Jock Carroll
Appearing at a unique juncture in the history of music, Johann Sebastian Bach was able to bring together a whole panoply of styles, forms and traditions that had developed over the previous generations and through a unique synthesis strengthen and enrich them all. His combination of structural rigour together with an imaginative freedom stands as a pinnacle of Baroque Music. The Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship will enable a visionary artist to recreate music from this composer and this period in ways that will challenge audiences anew and transform their experience and understanding.
For centuries the City of Weimar has been home to some of Europe's most renowned artists and thinkers; from Herder to Goethe, Schiller to Schopenhauer; from Cranach to Kandinsky and from Bach to Liszt, the city has nourished these outstanding personalities.
In keeping with this tradition, the City of Weimar will award the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship every two years, thereby enabling a virtuoso of outstanding calibre to realise a unique and lasting vision.