The Zimmermann coffeehouse was built in 1715, and by 1720 had become the most fashionable club in Leipzig, hosting the concerts of the Collegium Musicum, an ensemble directed by Georg Philip Telemann and later by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Unlike other coffeehouses of that time, Café Zimmermann allowed women to attend its concerts. It was a place of cultural exchange of the highest level, promoting a sense of brotherhood and understanding between all those related to it. The club was the stage for most of Bach’s secular works, including ‘Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht’ BWV 211, also known as the coffee cantata.
This is the central work in the present project, prepared especially for our festival by Alina Rotaru, and featuring soloists and instrumentalists from Germany, Great Britain, Latvia and Lithuania. Alina Rotaru studied piano and choral conducting at the music academy in her hometown of Bucharest, as well as harpsichord at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen, at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and at the University of the Arts Bremen. She is an active soloist and ensemble player, and also in charge of various orchestral, opera, and sacred music projects of the German Early and Late Baroque as an artistic director.