The Parnassus Ensemble is a young Early Music collective founded in 2022 by Oscar Holch, Xeniga Gogu and Victor García García as result of participating in several young artist programmes throughout the UK and Europe including: the Monteverdi Apprenticeship Scheme with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and at the Collegium Vocale Gent Academy with Philippe Herreweghe. They take their name from Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), a seminal book on counterpoint that was revered by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn.
On 22 May 2026, Oscar Holch conducts them in a concert at St Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, where they reflect on Martin Luther’s hymn, Christ lag in Todes Banden.
Entitled 3 in 1, the event features cantatas by Pachelbel, Kuhnau and J.S Bach all based on Luther’s hymn. Kuhnau was, of course, Bach’s predecessor as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, whilst Bach’s cantata is one of his earliest surviving and probably dates from 1707, well before he was in Leipzig.
But more than this, the concert is giving the music visual expression as the painter Jérémie Queyras will respond in real time on three large canvasses, acting as an evolving visual backdrop behind the ensemble for the drama of the music to unfold. In addition to the artistic responses, selected contemporary texts will be woven throughout the performance that reflect on the themes found in the texts of the cantatas.
Following the London performance the ensemble is presenting 3 in 1 at Purbeck Art Weeks on the 24 May, making their UK festival debut.
Further details from EventBrite.
