Emmanuel Music engages with audiences and musicians to explore the enduring questions of our shared human experience, building on our core commitment to the music of J.S. Bach.
Emmanuel Music, founded in 1970 by Craig Smith, has served as the ensemble-in-residence forBoston’s Emmanuel Church for fifty years. The two organizations maintain a close, symbioticrelationship that is crucial to each entity’s individual success. The primary activity of theensemble is the weekly presentation of the sacred cantatas of J.S. Bach in the liturgical contextfor which they were written.
Learn about our history
Having just completed 13 years as Artistic Director of Emmanuel Music and Music Director of Emmanuel Church, Ryan Turner conducted his 200th Bach Cantata at Emmanuel on May 14th, 2023. An astounding achievement for any conductor, we are honored to celebrate Ryan in his work with our community.
Ryan Turner's first 10 years
For 37 years Emmanuel Church and Emmanuel Music stood at the center of Craig Smith’s musical and spiritual life. Craig arrived at this church on Newbury Street as choirmaster in 1970. A visionary even then, he probably could not have imagined how the organization he created would grow in reach and in expertise; he could not have imagined some of the obstacles it would have to overcome, or the exemplary role in the community and indeed the world that it would eventually come to play. Like Bach, he was doing his job.
Craig Smith's legacy
