David Portillo is 38 years old and comes from a large family. His childhood was full of music. At home, his siblings sang Paraguayan folk songs with their parents in Spanish and in Guaraní, the original national language. David’s father played the guitar and taught his children early on. The first songs he remembers are two Guaraní folk songs: „Pacholí“ and „Che Burrito Lambaré“.

At the age of nine, he played his first gigs with his own band at school and later at folk festivals. David recorded his first record when he was 12.

A year later, he heard music by Johann Sebastian Bach for the first time. His neighbor, Diego Sanchez Haase, played it for him. The music touched him so much that he never let go of it from then on. It opened up new worlds for him. Diego Sanchez Haase recognized the boy’s talent and sent him to music school in Asunción, where he studied music. Today, David Portillo is one of Paraguay’s most successful singer-songwriters and a member of the „Sociedad Bach del Paraguay“, which Diego Sanchez Haase founded in 2008 and in which mainly young musicians sing and play.

„The music here connects me with my roots, with the traditions, the landscape and the people. It is something very big and special that nothing can replace. But Bach’s music connects me to another dimension and that’s what makes it so universal, because it’s about connecting people to something higher. The biggest difference for me is that the satisfaction I feel when I have finished singing Bach comes from deep within me. I don’t know exactly how to explain the great emotions that this music triggers in me. In no other area of life have I ever had such a comprehensive experience. I have found complete fulfilment in Bach’s music.“

David Portillo

Kazuko Nawata, a 40-year-old Japanese woman who lives in Yamaguchi, devotes herself to art and music alongside her profession as a pharmacist. She is a soprano and regularly performs with her Bach ensemble in public places such as railway stations. Like many Japanese people, she loves cosplay and has clothes from Bach’s era, which she likes to wear during performances. She is also a passionate visual artist and paints large-format pictures in vibrant colors, which she also exhibits.

„Racial discrimination is the order of the day in South Africa. But Bach’s music has the power to overcome it.“

Thabang Modise, 35, lives in Johannesburg with his wife and one-year-old daughter and grew up in the Schweizer-Reneke township in the humblest of circumstances. 

Bach helped the IT technician to change his perspective. Before he came into contact with Bach and his music, Thabang was convinced that there was an insurmountable barrier between white and black people due to apartheid, slavery and the colonial era. Today he sees things differently: just as Bach’s voices interact and form a whole, so too can people come together – despite their differences and pasts.

„If we as Bach singers recognized that, despite all our differences, we have a certain relationship with each other, that we depend on each other in the smallest things, then we would treat each other better. Even if you don’t know the other person, there is something that connects you to them. If we find what we have in common, it will make the world a better place.“

THABANG MODISE

Lee Hai Lin studied architecture in Australia and now owns two cafés in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, which she runs together with her husband. She is also passionate about early music, plays the violin and bought a harpsichord kit with a friend, which they spent months putting together for the „Wicked Music People“.

With the ensemble, she brings Bach and other early music to the Malaysian province. In this predominantly Muslim country, however, playing Bach can have serious consequences.

“In Malaysia, if you are caught playing Bach’s music as a Muslim, you can go to jail. But we keep going because we believe in it and because we believe that it is so beautiful that it is worth sharing.“

Lee Hai Lin

Jesse Gehman is 32 years old and has been singing for as long as she can remember. As a child, she really annoyed those around her. She never believed in it, but always dreamed of one day being able to sing in the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, the oldest Bach choir in the USA. In Bach’s music, she finds the feeling that all people share something and are connected to each other. She also passes this feeling on to her patients, whom she often accompanies in their final and difficult hours.

Bianca Porcheddu lives with her husband in Canberra, has a son and is the daughter of Italian immigrants. After learning that in Hermannsburg, an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, missionaries taught Bach to the Aborigines 140 years ago and translated his hymns into their language, she travelled there and has been connected with the people ever since.

„Bach was an important part of my life from an early age. When I heard him for the first time, something about his music immediately attracted me: his artistry, his amazing ability to write beautiful yet simple melodies. And then he composes in such a complicated way, so mathematical and clever.“

„Sometimes there are moments when I ask myself: why am I doing this to myself? Playing even the simplest melody beautifully is sometimes really difficult. By playing and practicing Bach’s music over and over again, you develop empathy, emotional intelligence, maturity, resilience and concentration. That’s what I love about Bach.“

BIANCA PORCHEDDU