Name: HSO Brass Quintet in Saugatuck – Free Concert
Start: 2025-05-18T14:00:00
Location: Saugatuck-Douglas Library

Greg Bassett

Bruce Formsma

Paul Hardaker

Adam Graham

Brendan Bohnhorst

Holland Symphony Orchestra

After studying piano and composition with Florence Price in Chicago, Margaret Bonds composed her variations in the wake of the 1963 firebombing of Birmingham, Alabama’s 16th Street Baptist Church. She describes them as “a group of freestyle variations based on the Negro Spiritual theme; I want Jesus to Walk with Me. The treatment suggests the manner in which Bach constructed his partitas – a bold statement of the theme, followed by variations of the theme.” A profound lyricist and yearning optimist, Austrian composer Joseph Marx considered himself a musical poet of happiness.  HSO Music Director Johannes Müller Stosch describes his 1919 Romantic Piano Concerto as “the Austrian counterpart of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto, with lush romantic melodies, harmonies, and plenty of technical fireworks for the soloist.”  The piece was resurrected and made popular by famed pianist Jorge Bolet, is a rarely performed gem melding orchestra with piano in a duet of energy and radiant lyricism.

Classics IV: Romantic Connections

West Ottawa High School Performing Arts Center

HSO Brass Quintet in Saugatuck – Free Concert

Saugatuck-Douglas Library