The Bach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki, who remains its music director, with the aim of introducing Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the baroque period. Since 1995 the BCJ has acquired a formidable reputation through its award-winning recordings of Bach’s major choral works and the complete sacred and secular cantatas, an enterprise which in 2018 was concluded with the release of the 65th and final volume. During this period, the BCJ has become firmly established on the international concert scene, with appearances at prestigious venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Bachfest Leipzig in Germany as well as at the BBC Proms in London. In addition to its much acclaimed Bach recordings, releases by the ensemble include a number of large-scale choral works by Monteverdi, Handel and, most recently, Mozart and Beethoven. The instrumentalists from the BCJ have also recorded a number of discs including Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and the Orchestral Suites.
