Author: Cara Escarment

I. Introduction

I have always loved music. I grew up listening to almost every genre you can imagine (excluding certain facets of country music, thanks to my parents’ strong preferences). I’ve been known to obsess over the soundtrack of an obscure film, or stop mid-conversation in a department store to Shazam a song that caught my ear. That passion has always been part of me. But does that make me a true listener?

Before coming to Leipzig, I realized my relationship to music had mostly been about enjoyment: what sounds good, what moves me. I rarely asked why it moved me, how it was structured to do so, or what about the space, the performers, or the history made a piece land a certain way. I arrived expecting to keep listening the way I always had—passively, intuitively. But over the course of this program, through the concerts, seminars, and just being here, something changed.

Leipzig’s musical spaces, architectural design, and historical weight pushed me to listen differently. From the sacred reverberations of the Thomaskirche to the clear acoustics of the Gewandhaus, each concert reshaped how I experience sound. Through this immersion, I came to realize: Leipzig didn’t just show me great music, but impactfully changed the way I listen to it.

II. Sound Meets Space: Architecture and Acoustics

When I first arrived in Leipzig, I believed I knew how to appreciate music. I expected the concerts to be enjoyable and maybe even inspiring. What I did not expect was that they would change how I listen altogether. That shift began with the Friday cantata concert at the Nikolaikirche. Sitting in the pews of this centuries-old church, I was struck not just by the music itself, but by the way the space carried and shaped the sound. The acoustics made each note feel both intimate and monumental. I could feel the vibrations of the performance surrounding me, not coming from a speaker or headphones, but from the architecture itself.

The next night’s performance at the Salle de Pologne brought a different type of transformation. The Coffee Cantata, full of humor and theatricality, showed me the importance of performance beyond sound. The soprano’s acting, much of which she told me afterward was improvised, gave the music an energy that I could see as well as hear. That experience helped me understand how much meaning in music can be communicated through gesture, body language, and tone. I began to listen with my eyes as much as with my ears.

By Sunday, during the St. John Passion at the Thomaskirche, I noticed something had shifted. I was no longer attending concerts as a passive observer. I was learning to listen with intention. I became more aware of the emotional pacing of each piece, the relationship between music and space, and the powerful silence that follows a moving performance.

Rather than simply hearing what was being played, I was beginning to engage more fully. Leipzig gave me the opportunity to discover that listening can be active, reflective, and deeply connected to a place.

III. Performer Energy and Audience Connection

One of the most meaningful moments of my time in Leipzig was stepping into the role of a performer during our final recital at the Alte Börse. Until that point, I had spent most of the trip absorbing music from the audience’s side. I had been listening and reflecting, growing more aware of the spaces and stories that surround a piece. But performing inside a historic building, alongside fellow Princeton students I had grown close to, added an entirely new layer to that understanding.

As a performer immersed in the experience and space, I became intensely aware of the acoustics in a way I never could have imagined as just a listener. Every note we sang bounced back in surprising ways, sometimes ringing longer than expected, other times vanishing more quickly than I thought they would. Rather than feeling like sound was something we created and sent out, it felt as if we were working with the room, shaping each phrase with care and instinct.

There was something powerful about performing with people I had experienced Leipzig alongside. We had walked the same cobbled streets, sat in the same pews during concerts, and now shared the responsibility of creating something together. That connection made the music feel more alive, more personal. It was not just about getting the notes right. It was about expression, attention, and trust.

This experience reminded me that listening and performing are not separate. Each informs the other. Performing helped me realize that the act of music-making is just as much about responding to space and to each other as it is about technical skill. At that moment, I was no longer only learning how to listen, I was living it.

IV. The Role of Space

If Leipzig changed the way I listen, then its spaces were some of my greatest teachers. The architecture of each venue shaped the sound in a way that made the experience feel not just musical, but spatial and emotional. I began to realize that where you hear something can influence how you hear it.

The Thomaskirche, for example, gave works like the St. John Passion and the B minor mass a sense of reverence that could never be replicated in a conventional concert hall. The sound seemed to linger, filling the arched ceilings and stained-glass with something that felt almost weightless. Sitting in that space, I wasn’t just hearing the music, I felt surrounded by it. In contrast, the Gewandhaus offered clarity and balance. When I heard Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 there, I was struck by how crisp and articulate each section of the orchestra sounded, especially the brass and lower strings.

It wasn’t until I performed in the Alte Börse that I fully understood the intimacy that space can create. The hall was small, warm, and richly detailed. Singing there, I felt close to both the audience and my fellow performers. There was no sense of distance. The room invited a sense of reflection, control, and connection.

Across all of these spaces, I learned to listen not just to the music itself, but to how it responded to its surroundings. I started to understand sound as something physical, that moves through material and air and reaches people differently depending on where they listen. That awareness has stayed with me. It makes every performance feel more alive.

V. Personal Reflection: A Changed Listener

Before coming to Leipzig, I thought of myself as someone who simply loved music, but love alone doesn’t always mean deep listening. I rarely stopped to think about why I was drawn to certain sounds, how music worked, or how the space around it might shape my experience.

This city changed that. Through concerts in sacred churches and historic halls, I learned to listen differently. I started paying attention to more than just the melody by listening to space, to resonance, to silence.

Leipzig showed me that being a listener is active. It’s about being present, being curious, and letting the music shape you in real time. Sharing that experience with other student performers reminded me how vulnerable and joyful music-making can be. I’ve learned that the spaces we sing and play in carry meaning, and that being aware of them enriches every note.

I came to Leipzig expecting to enjoy the music. I didn’t expect to be changed by it. But I leave with a fuller understanding of sound, of performance, and of what it means to truly listen: with attention, with emotion, and with a sense of place.

It’s hard to believe this is the last blog post I’ll write about Leipzig. After weeks of exploring, listening, performing, and reflecting, our final concert at the Alte Börse felt like both a closing chapter and a quiet celebration. The room itself was intimate, had golden lighting, and an extremely reflective atmosphere. I had the chance to perform two choir pieces and one trio with other Princeton students, and while I’ve performed many times before, this felt different. It wasn’t about perfection. It was about sharing something we had all built together.

There was something deeply personal about this final performance. Maybe it was the fact that we had all seen each other grow in just a few weeks. We started off as tourists who took the wrong trams to German instruction, and became extremely proficient in all things Leipzig. Maybe it was the music itself. Standing in the Alte Börse, I felt a strange mix of calm and fullness, like I was exactly where I needed to be. And as soon as it ended, I wanted to do it all over again.

Saying goodbye to the city hasn’t been easy. Every walk to seminar, every church bell, every lingering note in a concert feels sharper now, more defined. I’ll miss the sound of trams blending into Bach, the sounds of musicians of all kinds playing music everywhere I walk. I’ll miss turning corners and finding music spilling out of a doorway. I’ll miss the feeling of being constantly surrounded by centuries of musical history, and by people who care deeply about it.

One of my favorite memories actually came at a moment when I wasn’t expecting anything musical at all. I was grabbing lunch at the train station, half-focused and hungry, when I noticed a small children’s choir singing in the open space as part of Bachfest. A few people were sitting and listening. Most were passing through, busy with their day. But I stopped for a while. The simplicity of it, with  young voices echoing in a public space, Bach in the background of an ordinary afternoon, felt quietly profound. It wasn’t a major performance, but it captured something essential. That experience was so Leipzig.

I’m also grateful. For the spaces that held our voices. For the concerts that reminded me to listen. And for the friendships that turned performances into memories. I came to Leipzig looking forward to the music and beautiful language, but I leave remembering the people, the spaces, and the unexpected magic in between.

Bis bald, Leipzig.

IMG_4792

This week, I attended a concert at the Gewandhaus Leipzig: an impressive building and performance space that felt just as important to the experience as the music itself. The hall is designed in a way that draws you in: the stage is central, and the audience surrounds it from every side. Our seats were directly in front of the conductor, and we were close enough to read the musicians’ sheet music. That kind of proximity made it easy to feel connected to what was happening on stage, which almost felt like being a part of the music-making process.
The program featured three works:

Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto for Three Pianos and Orchestra in D minor, BWV 1063

Arthur Honegger – Symphony No. 2 for Strings and Trumpet, H. 153

Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Bach’s concerto opened the evening with an unusual and exciting setup: three grand pianos in a triangular formation. After the performance, one of the pianos was lowered from the stage through what I could only describe as a trap door, which made for a theatrical (and unexpected) moment. Beyond the visuals, the pianists themselves were deeply expressive. It can be hard to physically convey emotion through a seated instrument like the piano, but all three performers found a way to make their interpretations visible through body language and phrasing. It was very engaging and fun to watch.
The Honegger piece stood out for me as the most striking part of the program. The string writing was rich and layered, with a tension that slowly built throughout the piece. From the beginning I felt captivated, like there was something I was waiting for, but I did not want it to end. I didn’t know much about Honegger before this performance, but now I want to learn more. This work was absolutely beautiful.
The final piece, Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, was powerful and beautifully performed. The brass section played with warmth, and the entire orchestra felt very unified. It’s crazy to think that a band and orchestra, two very different sounds, can come together into such a harmonious body. It’s easy to hear why this work is so well-known—its balance of complexity and emotion is something I’ve come to appreciate more the deeper I get into performance and analysis.
Overall, this concert reminded me how much more I notice in live performances now than I used to. Being a musician and leaning more into my ear for music when attending a performance has changed the way I listen. There’s more awareness of detail, effort, and nuance. Watching professionals perform at such a high level was both inspiring and motivating, and it’s definitely a night I’ll remember.

If you told me a few months ago that one of my favorite mornings in Leipzig would involve opera-style improvisation, free croissants, and a dive into 18th-century caffeine politics….I probably would’ve believed you, honestly. But I definitely wouldn’t have imagined it would all come together as beautifully as it did at the (numerous) Cantatas performance this Saturday. Specifically, the performance of Bach’s Coffee Cantata (BWV 211) was one of those rare events where every element, music, space, staging, and even the breakfast, came together in a way that made the whole thing feel both special and surprisingly current.

The program featured Bach’s Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (or Coffee Cantata for those uninterested in authenticity) is basically a mini comic opera, complete with a dramatic father-daughter standoff over….coffee. It was performed with wit, energy, and a creative sense of staging that made the music feel incredibly alive. The tenor(Fridolin Wissemann), who served as the narrator, delivered his part from a balcony ledge a story above and off to the side, while the soprano (Yumi Tatsumiya, playing the daughter) and bass (Lucas Reis, the father) performed at ground level in front of us. That spatial dynamic made the piece feel like it was unfolding in real time. I sat there with a cup of coffee in hand, watching this hilarious drama unfold (I even watched Vito fearfully say “nein” when the father asked him to marry his daughter. Guess he wasn’t interested in letting his potential wife drink coffee three times a day).

And speaking of the potential wife, she was brilliant. Yumi’s voice was clear and expressive, but what really stood out was her presence. Her acting was both playful and grounded, completely in sync with the tone of the piece. Afterward, I had a chance to speak with her and was amazed to hear that much of the acting was improvised. It’s one thing to perform Bach well; it’s another to bring humor, spontaneity, and emotionality to a centuries-old piece with such confidence and timing.

Even though I’m not much of a coffee drinker myself, I found the cantata’s subject unexpectedly interesting. Written at a time when coffee culture in Europe was still developing, and when women in particular were mostly discouraged from drinking it, the story becomes more than just a musical joke. The daughter’s love for coffee became a stand-in for something bigger: autonomy, desire, and resistance. It wasn’t just about caffeine, it was about access and control wrapped in clever writing and expressive music. This made watching this piece (as a woman in 2025 casually sipping coffee) feel both funny and empowering. On top of that, watching it performed by young musicians who brought their own interpretations to the roles made that dynamic feel even more layered.
There’s something delightful about starting the day with a performance like this: lighthearted, beautifully sung, and historically rich. It reminded me just how much personality and humor there is in Bach’s secular music, something that can often get overlooked next to his larger sacred works.
If this performance is any indication, Leipzig mornings are best spent with live music, coffee, and a bit of theatrical flair.

Screenshot

As a newly declared structural engineering major, I promised myself that I would truly explore German architecture and infrastructure in Leipzig. It doesn’t take an engineering student to see the incredible efficiency of the tram system. I was blown away by the fact that the tram tracks are above ground, and on the same streets that cars traverse. This might just be the inefficiency of Atlanta public transit, but I was absolutely amazed. The frequency and cleanliness of the tram system is something I will definitely be sad to leave.

More on German architecture: Upon first arriving in Leipzig, one of the first activities we did was a tour. The “English-Speaking” (A1) group got to go inside of both Nikolai and Thomas Kirches. While inside Thomaskirche, Tendekai and I shared our thoughts. We exchanged a moment where both of us started spewing knowledge about either German architecture (in my case), or visually interpreting the organ pipe sizes (I was quite amazed about how much he knew on the subject entirely). The contrast in both of our thoughts was hilarious, but also showed how many differing parts and perspectives can come from one work. This past semester I had the opportunity to take a Civil Engineering class called “Bridges”, but we also studied tons of European vaults, buildings, domes, etc. One lecture from that class that I thought of immediately was Lecture 12: “The Gothic Cathedral and the Skyscraper”. The Goth festival (amazing to see while exploring this weekend) being this weekend aside, the insights from that lecture allowed me to see some architecture inside of Thomaskirche in a new light.

To me, the ceiling of Thomaskirche was enthralling. To make it brief, it featured numerous pointed arches(very visible in the stained glass picture), flying buttresses(those white pillars you can see in the picture), and a ribbed-vault ceiling that features diagonal braces for a more stylistic approach. Long story short: if you ever see me looking up at the ceiling randomly, these terms are bouncing around in my head. I find it so fun to discover more about German architecture while exploring the city, and I can’t wait to explore more musically and historically important buildings while also keeping my eyes peeled for architectural insights!

P.S. Am I saying there are undiscovered links between Gothfest and Bachfest in Leipzig….? That will remain to be seen….