description
Fall in love with the surreal and sublime when musical innovation meets enduring classical elegance! Brazilian-born composer Clarice Assad‘s works, Bohemian Queen and “Suite for Lower Strings”, draw inspiration from the surrealist artistry of Gertrude Abercrombie and the timeless compositions of J.S. Bach. Paired with Bach’s Baroque-era brilliance of his Magnificat, an extraordinary evening unlike any other is guaranteed!
featured guests
Mary Elizabeth Bowden, trumpet
Southwest Michigan’s Chorllennium
tickets
Adult – $32 General Admission
Youth* – $16 General Admission
Processing fees included in price.
*Youth – ages 6-17 years
SAT. FEBRUARY 22, 2025
First Congregational Church
2001 Niles Ave | St. Joseph, MI 49085
EVENT SCHEDULE
6:00 PM – Doors open, Cash Bar available
6:30 PM – FREE Pre-Concert Conversation with Maestro Aubin (30 min)
7:30 PM – Concert (90 min)
Program Schedule
A free 30-minute pre-concert conversation with Maestro Matthew Aubin that delves into the concert’s featured musical works and composers. Affectionately called in-house as “Matt Chats,” these short sessions always enhance the evening’s experience for concert-goers. This special feature is available prior to each classical concert.
Musicians will already be on stage making a flurry of sound as they fine tune instruments and warm up with last minute practice of musical snippets or scales.
Signaling the start of the concert, a representative from the Symphony will come out on stage to welcome and greet our guests and thank our sponsors and supporters before turning the stage over to our Concertmaster, Musicians, and Conductor.
This concerto makes use of a popular chamber music ensemble of the time (flute, violin, and harpsichord), which Bach used on its own for the middle movement. It is believed that it was written in 1719, to show off a new harpsichord by Michael Mietke which Bach had brought back from Berlin for the Köthen court. It is also thought that Bach wrote it for a competition at Dresden with the French composer and organist Louis Marchand; in the central movement, Bach uses one of Marchand’s themes. Marchand fled before the competition could take place, apparently scared off in the face of Bach’s great reputation for virtuosity and improvisation.
“Suite for Lower Strings” (2009) is a five-movement fantasy on well-known themes by J.S. Bach. The work emphasizes the string section’s lower voices, such as the viola, cello, and bass. Typically in Baroque music, the melody was given to the higher instruments — but the suite, commissioned by the New Century Chamber Orchestra, was specifically tasked to showcase the often under-used lower instruments.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat, BWV 243, is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat. It is scored for five vocal parts (two sopranos, alto, tenor and bass), and a Baroque orchestra including trumpets and timpani. It is the first major liturgical composition on a Latin text by Bach.