What we sayBachtrack.com was founded in 2008 and is the largest classical concert finder online, with details of over 10,000 upcoming events worldwide in classical concerts, opera and dance. Our classical music database is uniquely well-structured and searchable by a huge number of different criteria, so whether you want to see what’s on near you, or by your favourite composer or artist, or at a particular destination or festival, our event finder can do this for you with ease. We work with many of the top classical music venues and organisations around the world, to make sure that we’re as comprehensive as we can be. We’re also a major reviewing site, with 75 reviewers around the world publishing around 120 reviews per month. Our knowledgeable and enthusiastic reviewing team covers the most interesting events in a level of detail increasingly rare in mainstream classical music writing today. Since January 2012, we’ve also been running One Stop Arts, a London-specific site dedicated to listing and reviewing the best across theatre, visual arts, museums and kids’ events as well as classical, opera and dance. So whether you want to find an event or find a festival, or read reviews and articles, just take a look, and we hope you find what you’re looking for. If you’d like to apply to join our reviewing team then have a look here, or contact us about other things here. Information on free listings, enhanced listings and advertising is here. You can also keep up with us on social media: we’re on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. |
What you sayOn our listings: “Your work on the Bachtrack site is superb! I shared with staff our listings and all were blown away. Many, many thanks for a beautiful site and a thorough representation of CBF!” Dana Werdmuller, Carmel Bach Festival, United States “Thanks for a great site. I feel like a child in a sweetshop.” Ian “I just want to say ‘Thank you’: Our schedule looks great, and I am really amazed about how fast you put it on your site!” Johannes Lachermeier, Bavarian State Opera “I can’t tell you how happy I am to have found Bachtrack.” Aranka On our reviews: “Great to see sensitive thoughtful reviewing, which would give someone who did not come to the concert/event a real feel of what it was all about.” Peter Sheppard Skaerved, violinist “I love your site and am so appreciative that Kay Kempin came to our concert to review it for Bachtrack... It was an unusually thoughtful and detailed piece of criticism, the likes one rarely sees today. And kudos to you for hosting one of the truly awesome music sites out in the world.” Bruce Levingston, Premiere Commission “Such a wonderfully descriptive and captivating review. I feel as if I’d been at the performance itself and now find myself wishing I indeed been there.” John Fox “Always in awe of the probing analyses of your writers.” Fiona “This is a beautifully written review. It makes me wish I could have been there and has inspired me to go in search of the works in question. Thank you.” Josephine “What I like about your reviews is that they make me wish I’d been there.” Sylvia |
About the Directors
As a very young child, David used to sneak out of bed and sit at the top of the stairs listening to the wonderful Chopin, Mozart and operas his parents would play in the living room below. He also used to read the opera libretti and sing bits of Verdi in the garden, performances which went mercifully unrecorded. David is the technologist on the team, having run a variety of hardware and software businesses, but undoubtedly enjoyed his work most (and had way too much fun) when he had the opportunity to run a pro audio company.
Alison came to classical music in her early twenties through a pianist boyfriend and some dedicated teaching. Her interest was very much revived when we had children. She discovered quite how awful were most of the tapes you could buy for babies and toddlers to listen to, ended up leading a local mother and baby group in singing, and playing “kitchen bands” with our two tiny children.
Music is a huge feature of our family life. The house is littered with David’s guitars and other sundry stringed instruments, our teenage daughter composes show tunes and plays guitar and drums, our son plays classical and jazz piano, and there’s usually music playing – live, recorded, or occasionally several at the same time. We listen to music of all types, from Béla Bartók to Béla Fleck, Mahler to Marley, and from Die Zauberflöte to Bernstein, Coldplay, Brubeck or Grappelli. We often go to concerts, and as you’d expect our concert-going taste is as eclectic as our taste at home.
So we’re not classical music purists, and we couldn’t possibly advocate that people have to be exclusively classical. But classical music, opera and ballet are part of a glorious, rich musical picture, and we'd like everyone to know enough about it to be able to choose it sometimes.
Alison and David Karlin
Site credits
We're proud that the site is built more or less entirely on open source software, most particularly Dries Buytaert's wonderful Drupal content management system.
Thanks to Julian Robichaux for the Javascript date picker.
Legals
We are Bachtrack Ltd, registered in England, company no. 06443197, registered office Bachtrack Ltd, The Studio, The Courtyard, Lynton Road, London, N8 8SL.
