Interreligious and intercultural encounters were the focus of the festival
The Musica Sacra International festival, held over Pentecost 2026 in Marktoberdorf, Augsburg, Munich, and throughout the Allgäu region, featured a diverse array of music from various religions and other cultural traditions. Through music, this festival of encounters makes an important contribution—especially in today’s world—to getting to know and understand other cultures and religions. Enthusiastic audiences experienced extraordinary musical performances, diversity, community, and tolerance. The motto of the successful festival was “Resonances of the Sacred.” Over 4,500 visitors attended the concerts, which took place in Marktoberdorf, Augsburg, Munich, and throughout the Allgäu region. Not only were the concerts very well received, but so were the various workshops and supporting programs—such as the intercultural brunch or the singing on Marktoberdorf’s market square—which reached a broad audience. A particular highlight was the sold-out festival choir, conducted by Prof. Jan Schumacher, which developed and presented an interfaith program.
Eight ensembles and choirs from various countries and regions around the world were invited: The Brigham Young University Singers (USA) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were of exceptionally high caliber. In the workshop, choir director Andrew Crane provided deep insights into the work and structure of the select choir, which is reconstituted annually through rigorous auditions. The Brigham Young University Singers harmoniously supported the festival choir as a studio choir.
The Efsun Ensemble (Turkey/Germany) had come together specifically for the festival. With one exception, all members live in Turkey, play in the country’s state orchestras, or teach at various universities there. The program featured Anatolian and Ottoman compositions, improvisations, and contemporary works inspired by the centuries-old musical tradition of modern-day Turkey.
The Cologne Gagaku Ensemble (Germany/Japan) presented ancient sacred ritual music that originated in China but has “survived” for 1,300 years only in Japan and is now practiced in only a few places in the world besides Japan. At first, the sounds struck the audience as dissonant or even jarring, but over the course of the festival—thanks to explanations provided in the studio—they came to be understood by many as ritual music. This ensemble was also very illuminating in light of the festival’s theme, “Resonances of the Sacred,” since gagaku is not primarily intended for human ears but is meant rather to please the divine.
Kol Koré (Germany/Israel) means “The Voice Calls” and is the name of the ensemble led by Jascha Nemtsov, cantor Aviv Weinberg, and antelope horn player Bar Zemach. The shofar is actually used to produce rhythmic signal tones on the High Holidays. The melodies that horn player Bar Zemach—who plays in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra—drew from his instrument were phenomenal and unique.
For 36 years, the choir Le Chant sur la Lowé (Gabon) has been on a quest to rediscover its pre-colonial cultural and religious roots and has put together a powerful program for the festival featuring many choreographic elements, including colorful performances and ritual body painting.
The Naghash Ensemble (Armenia/USA) presented ancient traditional liturgical chants of the Armenian Apostolic Church and compositions by Komitas Vardaped, a composer, music educator, and music ethnologist of great importance to Armenian music. John Hodian discovered Mkrtich Naghash, a priest who lived in the 15th century and wrote poetry about his experiences in exile. Hodian’s musical settings of his texts represent a further development of the Armenian musical tradition into the genres of modern classical, post-minimalism, jazz, and rock.
The professional choir Polifonija (Latvia) presented not only Christian music but also, for example, sutartiné—a very ancient, pre-Christian, polyphonic singing style. Here, too, it was striking that many of the composers are still alive and that the choir is clearly working to further develop Latvian choral music, in which Christian, folk, and nature-based religious themes can coexist side by side without conflict.
The four musicians of the Prassana Vishwanathan Ensemble (India) performed wonderful ragas. It was fascinating to see how Prassana initially focused on the breathing process with long, individual notes, drawing in the energy of life and the universe as he inhaled and releasing sounds as he exhaled. He was accompanied by a pakhawaj player (an ancient Indian drum), a tanpura, and a student singer who occasionally repeated passages or accompanied the singing an octave higher. In the workshop, he described how the high art of Druphad singing is passed down in India precisely through such guru-student relationships.
In addition to attending a total of 15 concerts throughout the Allgäu region, Augsburg, Munich, and Oberammergau, the open-minded visitors had the opportunity to get to know the ensembles in various workshops, sing along in the festival choir, attend lectures, church services, and an interfaith prayer service, and gather in the evenings for a cheerful get-together at “Café Musica.” The festival choir sang under the direction of Jan Schumacher and also presented an exclusive world premiere. With this program—and especially with the world premiere—Musica Sacra International provided inspiration for the choral repertoire that extended far beyond the festival itself. Another unique feature was that all three composers were present and were thus able to offer valuable guidance on the performance of their pieces during the choir’s rehearsals.
Two weeks before the festival began, the Singakademie zu Berlin girls’ choir traveled to Marktoberdorf with its director, Friederike Stahmer, and an interfaith concert program to perform the opening concert and lead a workshop at the middle school in Marktoberdorf as part of the “Tolerance in Schools” initiative. The day after the festival, Turkish composer Recep Gül—who developed a makam app at Istanbul Technical University—led a workshop on makam music. The audience was diverse, and everyone—from a Turkish bus driver to a Turkish singer and oud/saz player—learned a great deal about this unique Turkish musical system.
Many of these encounters happen spontaneously and unplanned, while others extend far beyond the festival itself. In essence, Musica Sacra International functions like a social experiment: you gather 200 musicians, 50 choir singers, over 60 volunteers of all ages, people of many different religions, and the audience for five days in the Allgäu, create a structure with concerts, workshops, rehearsals, lectures, church services, etc.—and then see how it all unfolds. A truly Pentecostal spirit—or perhaps the Hebrew “ruach”—was in the air in the Allgäu that Pentecost. It brought people, cultures, and religions into connection and resonance with one another.