Review
Musica Sacra International 2026
Reviews by the Artistic and Academic Theological Directors
a) Review by Bettina Strübel
Artistic Director of the Festival · Frankfurt, May 30, 2026
Over the Whitsun weekend, from May 22 to 26, 2026, the interfaith festival Musica Sacra International took place in Marktoberdorf and the Allgäu region. This year’s theme of the festival was “Resonances of the Sacred”. Eight ensembles from different religions and regions of our world were invited to present their religious, cultural and musical traditions in concerts and workshops. During the five-day festival, the festival choir rehearsed for the closing concert, at which it presented an interfaith programme featuring a world premiere.
Below are some reflections on the ensembles and their music, their background, and also on other encounters and observations.
The festival’s website, www.musica-sacra-international.org, features descriptions of the ensembles and further information.
Brigham Young University Singers (USA,Utah)
In terms of quality, this choir ranks amongst the very best of the many choirs based at Brigham Young University, a university run by the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. During the workshop, choir director Andrew Crane and individual choir members provided an insight into the work and structure of the select choir, which is reconstituted each year following rigorous auditions. The choir performed arrangements, mostly by very young composers, of hymns from their church’s hymn book, spirituals and classical church music. It was striking that all the singers identified completely with the content of the music they were singing, and so the outstanding standard of the choir was accompanied by an inner radiance emanating from the singers. Another moving experience was hearing a morning prayer service at seven o’clock outdoors – whilst still lying in bed –, punctuated time and again by beautiful choral music. There had been some concerns beforehand about inviting this choir, as the strong proselytizing drive of the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” runs counter to the festival’s “Code of Conduct”. No proselytizing took place, and the five days spent together in the Allgäu led to many positive and interesting encounters – entirely in keeping with the respectful and dialogue-oriented approach that Germany’s two major established churches maintain towards this church. The Brigham Young University Singers provided backing as the studio choir for the festival choir – performing a Hebrew and Ottoman psalm as well as verses from the sura “The Merciful”. The lively performances by individual members in the nightly Café Musica – whether at the piano, on the microphone or on the drums – will be remembered fondly.
Efsun Ensemble (Türkiye/Germany)
An ensemble that has come together specifically for the festival. With one exception, all members live in Türkiye, play in the country's state orchestras, or teach at various universities throughout the country. The programme featured Anatolian and Ottoman compositions, improvisations, as well as contemporary works inspired by the centuriesold musical tradition of modernday Türkiye. Even though no dervish was spinning, you could vividly picture one doing so during the seamlessly connected pieces, which built up in tempo. When the singer, who had also been a muezzin for many years, was due to perform alongside the festival choir in the closing concert, there was some initial confusion, as – despite prior arrangements – he insisted on reciting from the Quran whilst seated, which made the event services team sweat quite a bit. However, such misunderstandings are also part of an interfaith and intercultural festival and, despite the most thorough planning, cannot be entirely avoided; yet they can generally always be resolved.
Kölner Gagaku Ensemble (Cologne, Germany/Japan)
Gagaku is an ancient, sacred ritual music that originated in China, but has “survived” for 1300 years only in Japan and, outside of Japan, is practiced in just a few places around the world nowadays (Hawaii, New York, Cologne). A small intercultural group led by the ensemble’s director, Yoshiro Shimizu, has been working intensively on playing instruments that are exotic to us, such as the ryūteki (dragon flute), taiko (large drum), kako (small drum), koto (zither), biwa (Chinese lute), hichiriki (oboe) and shō (Japanese mouth organ). The sounds were dissonant, and the ensemble playing also seemed chaotic. Whilst many members of the audience at the opening concert were initially rather perplexed by the musical performance – which, incidentally, represented no fewer than three religions (Buddhism, Shintoism and Tenrikyō) – over the course of the festival and thanks to the explanations provided in the workshop, many came to understand, and in some cases even to love, this ritual music. This ensemble was also highly illuminating in relation to the festival’s theme, “Resonances of the Sacred”, given that Gagaku is not primarily intended for human ears, but is meant to open up the realm of the divine – or, one might say, to please the divine. As such, the festival regularly provides impulses to think about fundamental questions concerning religious music and how it is received.
Kol koré (Germany/Israel)
“The Voice Calls” is the ensemble’s name, and not only did the voice of Jewish cantor Aviv Weinberg call, but also the horn of an antelope, played by Bar Zemach. Usually, the shofar – most commonly a ram’s horn in Germany – is used to produce rhythmic signals on the High Holy Days. The melodies that horn player Bar Zemach, who plays in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, draws from the instrument his grandfather passed on to him with a mission are simply phenomenal. The ensemble, put together by pianist and professor of History of Jewish music, Jascha Nemtsov, delighted festival guests with a mix of Jewish liturgical music, arrangements by Isaac and Jacques Offenbach, and Yiddish songs. It was also lovely and moving to see the American cantor Gerald Cohen – whose Psalm 23 was sung by the festival choir – step in at short notice for a concert in Munich when one of the ensemble members was unable to attend. The fact that “Musica Sacra International” is a festival of encounters is also evident time and again in the collaborations that emerge well beyond the Whitsun days in the Allgäu. For example, Gerald Cohen is to write a commissioned composition for shofar, piano and orchestra for the Shalom Music Festival in Cologne, which is due to be premiered on September 5, 2026.
Le Chant sur la Lowé (Gabon)
For 36 years, the choir has been exploring its pre-colonial cultural and religious roots and has put together a powerful programme for the festival, featuring many choreographed elements. The colourful presentation, including body painting, may reinforce a stereotypical image of Africa. It is therefore worth reading the programme booklet, which contains all the texts, translations and brief explanations. This helps to broaden one’s understanding of the pre-colonial culture of Gabon’s many Bantu peoples, including a critique of colonialism (“the white man once lied to us…”). The choir’s founder, who was elderly and had difficulty walking, travelled with the group, and it was touching to see how everyone treated her with such respect. On the day of departure, the choir received the news that a choir member, who had stayed at home due to illness, had passed away. A driver reported that, on the way to Munich, the Jewish cantor sang a song in the car to comfort a choir member – what a touching moment!
The Naghash Ensemble (Armenia/USA)
In 301 A.D., under King Trdat III, Armenia became the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion. The Naghash Ensemble performed ancient traditional liturgical chants of the Armenian Apostolic Church and compositions by Komitas Vardaped, a composer, music teacher and music ethnologist of great importance to Armenian music. He survived the genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, but whilst in exile in France he was unable to recover and died in 1935 in a psychiatric hospital in Paris. John Hodian, the ensemble’s founder, has Armenian roots but now lives in America. He discovered Mkrtich Naghash, a priest who lived in the 15th century and wrote poetry about his experiences in exile. Hodian’s musical setting of Naghash’s texts represents a further development of the Armenian musical tradition into the genres of modern classical, post-minimalism, jazz and rock.
Polifonija (Lithuania, Šiauliai)
The professional choir from Lithuania performed Christian music, as well as, for example, Sutartinė – an ancient, pre-Christian style of polyphonic singing. For this reason, the choir was represented by three symbols in the programme booklet. The variety of religious symbols connected to individual ensembles was a new feature, but it highlights the plurality and coexistence of cultural and religious influences. Here, too, it was striking that many of the composers are still alive and that the choir is clearly working to further develop Lithuanian choral music, with Christian, folk and nature-based religious themes coexisting side by side, seemingly without conflict.
Prassanna Vishwanathan Ensemble (India)
The four musicians from India performed some wonderful ragas, such as the Ragā Gāvati (a raga about the unity of all faiths). Each raga was presented through Dhrupad, the oldest surviving form of Hindustani music (Northern India). Dhrupad originates from religious and spiritual vocal traditions and, over the course of its long history, has been shaped by a variety of spiritual influences from Hinduism, Islam, Sufi traditions and Sikhism.The fact that the programme booklet listed only “Hinduism” as the ensemble’s religion sparked debate in the run-up to the festival. Prassanna Vishwanathan is not the only one who finds it difficult to identify with a religion that is interpreted in a nationalistic way in his home country. The introductions to the concerts, as well as a statement by the musician, raised awareness on this issue. The concertgoers then had the chance to listen to the Dhrupad piece in its entirety – lasting around 40 minutes – and to lose themselves in deep meditation whilst doing so. It is fascinating how Prassanna initially focused on the breathing process with long, individual notes, drawing in the energy of life and the world as he breathed in, and releasing sounds as he breathed out. The tempo then gradually increased. He was accompanied by a pakhawaj player (an ancient Indian drum), a tanpura and a student singer, who would occasionally repeat passages or accompany the singing an octave higher. In the workshop, he described how it is precisely through such guru-student relationships that the high art of Dhrupad singing is passed down in India.
Festival Choir
Under the direction of Jan Schumacher, the festival choir performed four pieces: Psalm 23 “Adonai Roi” by Gerald Cohen (b. 1960), a musical setting of the Sura 55:1-9 “The Compassionate” by Recep Gül (b. 1982), a collage based on Psalm 1, which traced the journey of the reformed chorale into the Ottoman Empire and back again, and a world premiere.With this programme, and in particular with the world premiere, I hope to provide impulses for choral repertoire that extend far beyond the festival itself. Polish composer Zuzanna Koziej (b. 1994) set the famous Gayatri Mantra to music. The work incorporates both the Sanskrit text and the German translation. The composer writes: “The mantra as contemplation, the hymn as praise, and the rhythm (Konnakol) as a life-giving force – together, these three elements can be seen as a reflection of life itself and form the essence of the piece ‘Gayatri Mantra’.” Another notable 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. In the spirit of sustainability, the Gayatri Mantra is published by Carus-Verlag, and it would be wonderful if many choirs were to include this varied and delightful piece in their repertoire.
Prelude and Epilogue
Two weeks before the festival began, the girls’ choir of the ‘Singakademie zu Berlin’ and its conductor, Friederike Stahmer, travelled to Marktoberdorf. They brought with them an interfaith concert programme to perform at the opening concert and they also ran a workshop at the secondary school in Marktoberdorf as part of the initiative “Tolerance starts at school”.
The day after the festival, Turkish composer Recep Gül, who has developed a Makam app at Istanbul Technical University, ran a workshop on Makam music. The audience was mixed, and everyone – from a Turkish bus driver to a Turkish singer and oud/saz player – learnt a great deal about this unique Turkish musical system.
It is impossible to summarize all experiences and encounters in a short article. Many of these encounters happen quite spontaneously and are unplanned, whilst others extend well beyond the festival itself. Essentially, the whole thing feels almost like a social experiment along the lines of: bring together 200 musicians, 50 choir singers, over 60 volunteers of all ages, people of many different faiths and the audience in the Allgäu region for five days, create a programme of concerts, workshops, rehearsals, talks, church services and so on – and then see how everything develops and what emerges. There was certainly a Pentecostal spirit in the air in the Allgäu at Pentecost – or perhaps it was the Hebrew “ruach”. It created connections and a sense of resonance between people, cultures and religions. Despite the many languages which were spoken and sung, everyone involved was able to communicate; they were able to connect with one another, open up to one another and enrich one another with their cultural treasures. And so, for five days at the “Musica Sacra International 2026” festival, a utopia became reality!
Photos, Videos and further information: www.musica-sacra-international.org
Blog on the Gayatri Mantra at Carus: https://blog.carus-verlag.com/chorwerke-im-spotlight/zuzanna-koziej-gayatri-mantra/
b) Review by Prof. Dr. Peter Bubmann
Academic Theological Director · on the 2026 festival
This review supplements the one by the Artistic Director, Bettina Strübel, focusing in particular on aspects relating to the programme of accompanying events and interfaith educational initiatives.
Our festival can be viewed from a wide variety of perspectives: Some concertgoers attend just one concert and thus experience the festival primarily as a series of concerts with a distinctive religious flavour. Or they mainly take part in the early-morning yoga sessions. Others have purchased a festival pass and are thus able to experience more fully the connection between many different musical and religious traditions, particularly if they also take part in the workshops. This is especially true for the members of the festival choir, for whom the festival also represents a choral project with a special interfaith atmosphere. For the many volunteers who help out at MSI, the festival is a unique kind of experience and learning opportunity. A sense of community and the chance to catch up with teams who have worked together on previous occasions are often key aspects of the event. And then the festival also serves as a networking event for the “professionals” in the choral music scene. There, different topics and concerns come into play. This year’s edition of the festival saw the addition of another group: people involved in interfaith dialogue, both on a full-time and voluntary basis, who were keen to engage in interfaith learning processes through the medium of music. This group will be discussed first.
For the first time, the festival was preceded by a symposium held at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing (Protestant Academy Tutzing) from October 3 to 5, 2025, which examined the festival’s theme, “Resonances of the Sacred”, from both a religious studies and a theological perspective. This conference served both as a seminar for a group of students from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, which I led, and as an adult education event for interested members of the public from the Munich region. A number of members of the festival’s advisory board as well as the Managing Director of the Festival were actively involved as speakers and musicians, thereby lending the conference the character of an academic symposium. Through lectures and workshops, this conference explored the musical traditions represented at the festival and their religious connections. On the one hand, this led to summaries of the lectures being included in the festival’s new, more comprehensive programme booklet, which can serve as an initial guide to religious traditions and music (pp. 18–43). Furthermore, some of those who took part in the conference came to Marktoberdorf and participated in the MSI Festival by singing in the festival choir.
Building on this preliminary work in the fields of religious studies and theology, the opening lecture I delivered at the festival revisited the theme of “Resonances of the Sacred” and sought to provide guidance on how to perceive this music, using specific musical examples.
Furthermore, the Tutzing conference also gave rise to the idea of organising an interfaith celebration in Munich prior to the concert at the Herz-Jesu Church. To this end, a Munich-based working group was set up under the leadership of Alexandra Morath, which held several Zoom meetings using the “Scriptural Reasoning” method; a method on which Morath is also conducting academic research. Participants exchanged views on the ‘sacred’ texts of their respective traditions, brought them into dialogue with one another and, on that basis, developed a ‘dialogue impulse’, which was presented during an interfaith celebration at the Herz-Jesu Church prior to the festival’s concert in Munich on Saturday. Among the participants were the representatives for interfaith dialogue from the two major Christian denominations in Bavaria, Mirjam Elsel (ELKB, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria) and Dr. Andreas Renz (Diocese of Munich and Freising). For all of us, this provided a framework of interfaith encounter and intensive interfaith learning processes that tied in very well with the concert that followed. Although the working group for the interfaith celebration did not initially focus primarily on music, a particular emphasis on musical forms of expressing faith and religious ritual developed as the process unfolded. This culminated in a recitation of suras from the Quran, as well as several hymns from both the Christian and Bahá’í traditions, which were incorporated into the celebration. It would be desirable if this form of interfaith encounter and celebration were also given the opportunity to take place at other venues of the festival in future. In this way, links with organisations promoting interfaith dialogue locally, within the region and beyond could be further strengthened.
Much like this form of interfaith process culminating in a celebration, the workshops at the festival itself are also designed as spaces for interfaith learning. Feedback – for example, even in casual conversations at the caravan site – suggests that this is exactly how the workshops were perceived. When musicians themselves introduce others to their musical-religious tradition or take them along into their own practice through joint experimentation, this triggers particularly intensive learning processes.
Forms of informal learning that take place before, during or after concerts, church services and gatherings at Café Musica can be no less significant and may even have a particularly lasting impact. When the Brigham Young University Singers arrived at the Music Academy on Thursday evening and I was out for an evening stroll, I heard them singing in the cemetery next to the church and joined them. They were celebrating their evening ritual of “evensong” there, and without further ado they invited me to join them and included me in the service. This marked my first in-depth encounter with a tradition I had not been familiar with before. Many participants feel the same way during the communal meals or in the evenings as they wind down in the courtyard of the Music Academy.
The informal learning processes that take place whilst singing together in the festival choir are particularly intense. Not only because the composers of no fewer than three pieces were present in person and were thus able to offer insights into their intentions. But also, because, for example, the encounter with the Gayatri Mantra – one of the oldest and holiest mantras in the Indian tradition – provided an intense encounter with a musical-religious tradition that is scarcely achievable in the same way through mere listening. This is a prime example of how our festival fulfils its aim of offering an encounter with other musical and religious traditions.
The fact that this opportunity to get involved and connect through the festival choir is ultimately incorporated into the closing concert shows how the different ways of experiencing our festival can overlap and, as a result, reinforce one another.
All this is only possible because an organising team, led by the Managing Director of MODfestivals, Prof. Ulrich Wegenast, works in collaboration with the Artistic and Academic Theological Directors to prepare and run the festival. With only a small number of full-time staff, this organising team, along with the boundless dedication of 60 volunteers, ensures that such a complex event runs smoothly. We would therefore like to extend our special thanks to them.