Tag Archives: David Lockington

Spirit of J.S. Bach to fill Grand Rapids March 5-11

Citizen Journalism, Entertainment, , , ,

 

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

 

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is transformative. It has motivated the work of nearly every great composer to follow in the history of Western Classical music. It continues to inspire those who hear it more than 267 years after Bach’s death. The 11th Grand Rapids Bach Festival, which opens March 5, acknowledges that the music of J.S. Bach not only has staying power, it also has the ability to turn out an audience.

 

“The Grand Rapids Bach Festival was founded to infuse the community with opportunities to discover the works of Johann Sebastian Bach,” said David Lockington, Music Director Laureate of the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2013, following his appointment as the Festival’s director.

 

“We’re thrilled to share the transformational power of Bach’s music in an array of traditional and unexpected settings, said Lockington, who conducts three programs during the festival.

 

The 2017 Grand Rapids Bach Festival returns in March with a week of events celebrating the life and music of the composer whose music represents the pinnacle of the Baroque Era. The biennial festival launched in 1997 by Grand Rapids mezzo soprano Linn Maxell Keller, a singer, actress, organizer, advocate and devotee of the music of Bach. Keller, who died in June 2016, will be remembered during this year’s festival directed by David Lockington.

 

David Lockington, Music Director Laureate

The Grand Rapids Bach Festival, presented by the Grand Rapids Symphony, welcomes guest organist Isabelle Demers and harpsichordist Ian Watson to Grand Rapids and features solos by Grand Rapids Symphony’s concertmaster and violinist James Crawford, principal flutist Christopher Kantner, and principal oboist Ellen Sherman.

 

The culminating concert, titled Joyful Bach: Choral Celebration on March 11, features highlights of several of Bach’s cantatas including “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” from Cantata No. 147.

 

Expect some surprises during the 11th biennial festival. Visitors passing through the Gerald R. Ford International Airport on March 8 will be greeted by the music of J.S. Bach and others performed by the Grand Rapids Symphony’s Woodwind Quintet. Flutist Chris Kantner, oboist Sarah Peterson, clarinetist Suzy Bratton, hornist Erich Peterson and bassoonist Victoria Olson will play light classical music plus music by Bach from 2-5 pm in the Ford Airport’s Grand Hall adjacent to its food court.

 

Many area churches will include the music of Bach in Sunday services on March 5 and March 12.

 

The 2017 Grand Rapids Bach Festival also will remember its founder and champion, Linn Maxwell Keller. Grand Rapids Bach Festival originated in 1997 as a three-day celebration of the music of Bach, organized by Keller, a Grand Rapids resident, who had performed in major Bach festivals nationally and internationally. She engaged German organist, scholar and conductor Karl Hochreither, a noted authority on Bach’s church music, to serve as music director for several of the early festivals.

 

Isabelle Demers

Past guest artists at the Grand Rapids Bach Festival have included Jeannette Sorrell, harpsichordist and musical director of Apollo’s Fire in 2011. But many of the performers have been local musicians.

 

Keller’s vision for the festival included not only performances, but educational opportunities and explorations of Bach’s genius. Despite her loss, the Grand Rapids Bach Festival lives on.

 

“It’s established as long as the people of Grand Rapids want this festival,” Keller told The Grand Rapids Press in 2003. “As long as people are blessed by it and enjoy the music, it looks like we’ll be around for a while.”

 

The 11th biennial celebration of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach features five separate programs over six days in four churches and one museum in Grand Rapids.

 

Here’s the lineup:

The Bach Choral Celebration program will be rebroadcast on May 14, 2017, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM and 90.3 FM.

Tickets

Tickets are $15 for either the Creative Keyboards concert on March 7 or the Cantatas program on March 9. Students can get tickets for $5.

 

A freewill donation will be collected for the Bach Choral Celebration on March 11.

 

A $25 Bach Pass can be purchased for the entire Grand Rapids Bach Festival, and are available at the GRS ticket office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

 

Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

GR Symphony Music Director to Conduct his Last Concert

Local Entertainment,

GR symphonyby Sarah Koupal

Under the leadership of Music Director David Lockington, the Grand Rapids Symphony has achieved new heights of artistic excellence and greater acclaim: four-star ratings by The Grand Rapids Press, a Grammy-nominated performance with hip-harpist Deborah Henson Conant, the orchestra’s 2005 debut at Carnegie Hall and innovative diversity, education and inclusion initiatives. Lockington will conduct his last concerts in the role on Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9, 8:00 p.m. at DeVos Performance Hall as a part of the Richard and Helen DeVos Classical Series. The singular work featured in “David’s Grand Finale” will be Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”

The Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus and two guest vocalists, Kelley Nassief and Susan Platts, will join the orchestra for what is sure to be a powerful and significant performance.GRS conductor

Since the beginning of David Lockington’s tenure as GRS Music Director, the orchestra has played one major work by Mahler annually. The composer’s second symphony, “Resurrection,” was the composer’s first major work that established his lifelong meditation on the universal themes of life, death and human fate. The piece is also one of Lockington’s favorite works. The Grand Rapids Symphony has completed a full cycle of Mahler’s nine symphonies over Lockington’s tenure, making Mahler’s “Resurrection” a fitting and spectacular end to his final season.

Mahler’s second symphony is an elaborate work with a gargantuan orchestra, choir, organ, church bells, an offstage brass ensemble and a massive battery of percussion. According to Mahler’s own program notes, the first movement is intended to represent the death of the hero in his first symphony: “…it is the hero of my First Symphony that I am burying here and whose life I am gathering up in a clear mirror…At the same time is the great questions: Why have you lived? Why have you suffered? Is all this merely a great, horrible jest? We must resolve these questions somehow or other, if we are to go on living.”

To answer these questions, the second movement is a gentle, old-fashioned dance of lilting grace, representing long-forgotten pleasure, followed by a grotesque waltz for the third movement shot through with earsplitting chords to astonishing effect. The fourth movement serves as an introduction to the finale with a child’s song, wistfully longing for relief from life’s burdens.

With the colossal fifth and final movement, Mahler introduced sounds and effects never before used in symphonic music to depict the last judgment and resurrection, resulting in one of the most powerful climaxes in classical music. In Mahler’s own words, “The earth quakes, the graves burst open, the dead arise and stream on in endless procession. The trumpets of the apocalypse ring out. All is quiet and blissful. There is no judgment, no sinners, no just men, no great and no small; there is no punishment and no reward. A feeling of overwhelming love fills us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our existence.”

Upbeat, a free pre-concert multi-media presentation, will be hosted in the Recital Hall before each performance at 7:00 p.m. Upbeat is sponsored by BDO USA. “David’s Grand Finale” will be rebroadcast on Sunday, June 14 at 1:00 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio, FM 88.9 or FM 90.3.

“David’s Grand Finale” is sponsored by Warner Norcross & Judd. The guest artists for this concert are supported by the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.
Tickets start at $18 and are available at the Symphony office, weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 300 Ottawa NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.) Tickets are available by phone in the evening and on Saturday by calling 616.885.1241. Tickets are available at the DeVos Place Box Office, weekdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets may also be purchased through Ticketmaster, 800.982.2787, online at GRSymphony.org or in person at Ticketmaster outlets: select D&W Fresh Markets, Family Fare Stores and Walmart. Tickets purchased at these locations will include a Ticketmaster service fee. Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the Symphony’s Student Passport program. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.