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English Bach Festival
About us

Le spectacle merveilleux de l’English Bach FestivalLe Monde

Pioneers since 1977 as 'guest company' at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the English Bach Festival breathes life in to the operas of Purcell, Handel, Lully, Rameau, Gluck and presents them with magnificent costumes, elegant dance and the period instruments for which they were written. It has given the opportunity to see great works outside the usual repertoire, many of them for the first time at the Opera House, including some premieres in our time.

Ecstasy in a triumph of tradition.Andrew Porter - The Observer

Bach anniversary at Westminster Abbey

Productions have been acclaimed internationally at:

• Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as 'guest' company since 1977
• Linbury Studio Theatre, Covent Garden
• South Bank
• Sadler's Wells Theatre
• St. John's Smith Square
• Banqueting House, Palace of Whitehall
• Edinburgh King’s Theatre
• Château de Versailles: Opéra Royal, Grand Trianon, Orangerie Gardens
• Rome Santa Cecilia, Siena Rinnovati, Lugano, Reggio Emilia, Bologna, Lecce
• Monte Carlo, Salle Garnier
• Athens, Hellenic Festival at Herodes Atticus
• Alexandra Trianti Opera, the Megaron
• Lyon Opera, Vichy Opera
• Paris Théâtre des Champs Elysées, the British Embassy.
• Spain: Granada, Madrid Zarzuela, Barcelona, Cordoba, Sevilla, Valencia, Peralada, Murcia
• Châteaux de Chambord, Blois, Herrenhausen and Le Grand Théâtre de Reims

Lina Lalandi-Emery, OBE, Founder & Director

After an international career as a harpsichordist, Lina Lalandi-Emery founded the English Bach Festival Trust in 1962 with her late husband, Ralph Emery.

She is the director, chief administrator and responsible for research and all programme planning.

She was decorated by HM the Queen in 1975 as Officer of the British Empire, in 1979 was awarded in the Salon des Nobles, Château de Versailles, the French decoration of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, by Greece, the Gold Cross of the Phoenix and the Great Prize of Music by the Union Greek Theatre and Music Critics and Athens Municipality.

After the creation of the English Bach Festival, Lina Lalandi-Emery found herself putting on approximately 40 concerts for each Festival, and consequently she gradually stopped playing. Recently, she started playing again, and had some of her early recordings digitally remastered. Three CDs have now been produced, including a new CD of Bach's French Overture, as a tribute to the life's work of her late husband, Ralph Emery. All profits from CD sales go to the English Bach Festival Trust, a registered charity, working to promote the careers of young artists, performers and composers in the pursuit of excellence.

Each CD costs £5 plus £1 package and posting.

Ralph Emery, OBE, MA Cantab

Ralph Emery was chairman of the English Bach Festival Trust from its foundation in 1962 until his death on 24th August 2001. A scholar at Christ's Colleege, Cambridge, Ralph Emery enjoyed an outstanding career with Shell in Latin America and his knowledge and understanding of the region proved invaluable to both the British community in the region and to Latin American businesses in the United Kingdom. Highly regarded within the business world, he dedicated his life outside banking, and the fruits of his success, to the English Bach Festival - a glittering showcase on the international music scene - presented by his wife, Lina Lalandi-Emery.