December 7, 2025
When Two Musical Worlds Clash and Create Something New
There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when a jazz musician finally understands that Bach was improvising all along. On Tuesday evening, December 02 2025, at Studio TD, pianist Paul Lay and his trio—Clemens van der Feen on double bass and Donald Kontomanou on drums—didn’t just perform Bach through a jazz lens. They made the case that these are actually the same thing. The Festival International Bach Montréal‘s decision to program a jazz trio might have seemed unconventional, yet it paid off. By trusting that Bach’s music could sustain multiple approaches, the festival acknowledged something essential: that tradition remains
