CBC host Tom Allen’s latest ‘chamber musical’ tells the story of young Johann Sebastian Bach – who hadn’t really started composing yet and was actively screwing up terribly in his first job. After he got in a street fight and almost killed one of the students, he asked permission for time away. They gave him 4 weeks, but he was gone 4 months. He walked 400 km north to a glittering port city where a wise old teacher lived, and while he was there, over Christmas, it’s entirely possible he fell in love. When he came back, he very quickly became the genius artist we still revere.

JS Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow is a narrated performance accompanied by music that takes you along on that trip with glorious music – both familiar and gripping – performed by a brilliant cast of musicians and friends. This is the perfect way to sit back and decompress after the holiday season and listen to a great tale and glorious music!

Tom Allen was born in Montreal and went to school at Marianapolis College and McGill, before finishing degrees at Boston University and Yale. He worked as a bass trombonist in New York City when there were still places you just didn’t go, then in Toronto and on tour with the Great Lakes Brass. He began working for the CBC on his 30th birthday, and still does to this day. He has written three books, been a Resident Artist with Soulpepper Theatre, delivered storytelling workshops at various University music programs and at the Banff Centre, been named an honourary Doctor of Letters by Thompson Rivers University, hosted countless concerts across the country and written a series of cabaret storytelling shows he calls Chamber Musicals, including From Weimar to Vaudeville, The Missing Pages, A Poe Cabaret, Being Lost and this his latest: JS Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow.