Jonathan Freeman-Attwood doesn’t waste time. Trumpeter, scholar and record producer, he has been barely a term in his new job — principal of the Royal Academy of Music — before launching one of the most audacious projects to come from a British music conservatoire in years. And it will take years to complete.

It’s Bach’s cantatas — all 190 of them. Back in the early 19th century the RAM’s founders were at the forefront of the Bach revival led by Mendelssohn. Freeman-Attwood wants to pick up the threads of that great tradition. So on one Sunday a month during term time Bach’s cantatas will be performed, two or three at a time, by RAM students alongside the best Baroque musicians. The concerts, at noon, will last roughly an hour, and Freeman-Attwood estimates that it will cover about 25 cantatas a year. Which means that this epic voyage through some of Bach’s most devotional and sublime music should be finished some time in 2016.

“I wanted us to do something that presented a phenomenal educational challenge, that demonstrated the quality of our staff and students, and that would have a big impact on the community,” says Freeman-Attwood, who is himself a noted exponent of the 18th-century “natural” trumpet.

Under the direction of Iain Ledingham, the project will rope in outstanding specialists in the field of Bach performance. The violinist Rachel Podger, one of the leaders of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, will lead two of this year’s concerts. And textual scholars such as Richard Stokes will coach the student singers on the nuances of the deeply-felt Lutheran texts that Bach set, while he was cantor at St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig, to match the liturgical theme of each Sunday in the year.

Nevertheless, Freeman-Attwood emphasises that this will be a secular rather than a sacred presentation of the cantatas. It will take place in the Duke’s Hall at the RAM rather than in a church. “In the concert hall these life-affirming masterpieces can speak to audiences of all ages, backgrounds and creeds,” he says.

All this is made possible by the financial support of the Kohn Foundation. But Ralph Kohn — baritone, pharmacologist and collector of rare books and music — is bringing more than his chequebook to the party. He owns one of the very few autograph manuscripts of a Bach choral work still in private hands. Yes, it’s a cantata — Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein. And yes, by strange coincidence that very cantata will be performed in the opening concert next week — where Dr Kohn’s manuscript, replete with all Bach’s scribbled second thoughts, will be on display. The perfect Sunday lunch for any Bach lover.

— Bach’s Complete Church Cantatas start at the Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Rd, London NW1 (020-7873 7300; www.ram.ac.uk), on Jan 25 at noon

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