Grand Rapids Symphony Opens Great Eras Series with Music of Baroque

Of all the great composers of classical music, Johann Sebastian Bach reigns supreme. Even among other composers.

Beethoven called Bach, "The immortal god of harmony." Brahms declared, "Study Bach. There you will find everything."

"Music owes as much to Bach," Robert Schumann wrote, "as religion to its founder."

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is the beginning of European classical music in the modern sense, and the Grand Rapids Symphony opens its 2018-19 PwC Great Eras series with The Baroque Concert: Bach and Beyond at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12 in St. Cecilia Music Center, 24 Ransom Ave. NE

Music Director Marcelo Lehninger will lead the Grand Rapids Symphony in music by J.S. Bach, by his contemporaries, and by a modern composer inspired by Bach.

A highlight is a performance of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068, which is especially popular because one of its five movements is well-known as Bach's Air on the G String.

Grand Rapids Symphony Principal Oboist Ellen Sherman will be soloist in Alessandro Marcello's Concerto for Oboe. Though Bach did not compose the piece, he liked it so much that he made an arrangement of the work by the Italian composer for solo keyboard.

The concert includes Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9 by Brazil's most famous composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, who composed a set of suites of music that fuse Brazilian folk and popular melodies with harmonic and contrapuntal methods of composition that were used in the high Baroque era. Between 1930 and 1945, Villa-Lobos composed nine such suites for instrumental ensembles of varying sizes. Suite No. 9 for string orchestra was the last one he composed.

Additional music on the program is Dieterich Buxtehude's Fanfare and Chorus and Giovanni Gabriele's Canzon septimi toni a 8.

Highlights of the evening concert will be performed at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 12 as The Baroque Coffee Concert to open the Grand Rapids Symphony's Porter Hills Coffee Classics series. Concerts in the series last one hour and are held without intermission.

Doors open at 9 a.m. for complementary coffee and pastry before the 10 a.m. concert.

On Saturday, Oct. 13, the Grand Rapids Symphony will travel to Hope College in Holland to repeat the full program. The Baroque Concert at Hope College will be held at 8 p.m.

Principal oboist of the Grand Rapids Symphony since September 2001, Ellen Sherman formerly was principal English hornist with the New Zealand Symphony. She also has served as principal oboe with the Memphis Symphony, Virginia Symphony, New Hampshire Symphony, Utah Symphony and the Santiago Philharmonic in Chile.

A longtime member of the Carmel Bach Festival, Sherman has participated in numerous music festivals around the country, including the Colorado Music Festival, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival. She also played with the Boston Ballet and Opera Company of Boston, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Classical Orchestra. She toured Europe with the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival and Leonard Bernstein and has recorded for New World, Telarc, Koch, and Naxos.

The Boston native studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and earned a master's degree from The Juilliard School of Music.

The 2018-19 PwC Great Eras series and Porter Hills Coffee Classics series continue on January 11, 2019, with The Classical Concert: Viennese Masters; on February 22, 2019, with The Romantic Concert: Bella Italia!; and on May 3, 2019, with The 20th/21st Century Concert: Celebrating Women.

Tickets start at $26 for both the Great Eras concert on Friday in Grand Rapids and for the Hope College program on Saturday in Holland. Tickets $16 for the Coffee Classics concert and are available at the Grand Rapids Symphony box office, weekdays 9 am - 5 pm at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across the street from Calder Plaza). Call (616) 454-9451 x 4 to order by phone. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.) Tickets may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 am - 6 pm or on the day of the concert beginning two hours before the performance.

Full-time students of any age can purchase tickets for $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Tickets program, sponsored by Calvin College. Discounts are available to members of MySymphony360, the Grand Rapids Symphony's organization for young professionals ages 21-35.

The complete The Baroque Concert: Bach and Beyond program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, March 17, 2019, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

Photo by Terry Johnston | Grand Rapids Symphony