Grab a coffee, pull up a chair, and enter the world of Leipzig’s Café Zimmerman, as Bach Akademie Australia presents Collegium Musicum, a three-stop celebration of music and enlightenment, featuring Artistic Director Madeleine Easton, alongside guest performances from some of Australia’s finest Baroque instrumentalists, from Friday 12th to Sunday 14th June.

Continuing their extraordinary 2026 season, Australia’s leading Baroque ensemble focuses its attention on the institution that shaped generations of performers and composers alike – the Collegium Musicum of Leipzig. Bach Akademie Australia will perform music by its famous founder Telemann and other figures associated with it including Fasch and J.S. Bach – with intimate performances at the Mosman Art Gallery (June 12th), The Neilson, ACO On the Pier (June 13th), and Bowral Memorial Hall (June 14th).

1702 Leipzig. Bach’s great friend and colleague George Phillip Telemann has just founded The Collegium Musicum, an 18th century ‘student musical society’, that gives weekly public performances in the old university town. Fast forward to 1729, and the Musicum is now run by Bach, who expands the society’s influence to the artistic melting pots of Leipzig’s coffee houses. Here many of Bach’s most famous works are written and adapted.

This program acknowledges the founder of the Collegium, Telemann, with his ‘Tafelmusick’, his successor Fasch with his Sinfonia in G. As Bach’s great inspiration, Vivaldi is acknowledged with his famous variations on ‘La Folia’, and finally we celebrate the many great concerti written by J.S. Bach for his students at the Collegium including his famous Concerto in D minor for two violins.”

For this offering, Bach Akademie Australia presents the music of Bach, including his timeless Concerto for two violins in D minor, performed by Australian violinist Simone Slattery alongside Madeleine Easton, and a movement from his Concerto in F major for solo harpsichord, performed by Nathan Cox. Selections from Telemann’s entertaining Tafelmusik also feature, with Mikaela Oberg and Jessica Lee showcased on flutes, as well as his Violin Concerto in A major nicknamed The Frogs. The program also features Fasch’s Sinfonia in G minor, highlighting works by Bach’s predecessors that shine a light on the legacy of this remarkable institution. 

Vibrant and inspiring, don’t miss this unforgettable look inside 18th century Leipzig coffee house culture.