About Tuba Bach
MISSION: To provide the Big Rapids area community the opportunity to attend and experience world-class performances of chamber music in their own town, free of charge.
The Tuba Bach Chamber Music Festival, in conjunction with STAGE-M, announces its fifth season of bringing world class concert events to Big Rapids. Following the tradition of the first four years, the 2010 lineup continues to bring some of the finest musical talents from our community, the state of Michigan and from across the country to present six weeks of unique concerts, educational programs for our students, and community outreach events available to all. We continue also to stretch the imaginations of our audiences and the established definitions of chamber music in general by presenting a wide variety of musical styles and offerings, from soaring operatic arias and rousing choruses to brilliant improvisations and laugh-out-loud humor, intricate classical presentations and graceful dance to flourishing brass and boisterous Dixieland Jazz.
Over the past four years, the Tuba Bach Chamber Music Festival has entertained and educated thousands of Big Rapids area residents and students, Ferris State University faculty and students and neighboring West Michigan community members, as well as audience members from across the state and many out-of-state patrons who have made their journeys to Michigan for the festival an annual event. Musicians have come from six different countries, fifteen states, and throughout Michigan, as well as from our local communities to share their talents.
Tuba Bach has also commissioned and premiered several new musical compositions as well as numerous transcriptions and arrangements, adding quality new works to the repertoire by internationally known composers as well as composers from right here in our community.
And while the roster of musicians has been impressive indeed, with Grammy award winning musicians, Grand Ole' Opry regulars, and many internationally recognized artists from a variety of genres, Tuba Bach has and will continue to offer its world class Sunday afternoon concerts to everyone, with no admission fee.
EDWARD K. MALLETT is a Big Rapids native, recently returning to the area with his family as a home base for his musical activities. Dr. Mallett is recognized internationally as a performer on the tuba and euphonium, performing as soloist and chamber musician throughout North America in venues ranging from major concert halls to pre-school classrooms. Along with his solo career, he frequently performs throughout Michigan with his wife, Adriana, as TubaTales, a literacy and music program developed by the Malletts for elementary age students. Dr. Mallett is also recognized as the world's foremost authority on the double bell euphonium, presenting clinics and seminars on the instrument at a variety of international events. As a composer, Mallett has had his works performed throughout the world, with pieces ranging from intimate chamber works to full orchestral symphonic pieces. In 1998, Dr. Mallett was nominated for the Pulitzer prize in music for his work Tanka and Haiku: August 1945, a multi-media work for soprano, flute and piano, featuring poetry, photography and artwork of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mallett earned his undergraduate degree in music from Central Michigan University in 1992 and graduate degrees in music from Michigan State University in 1993 and 1996. Mallett taught for over ten years at college and universities in Michigan and North Carolina before returning to Michigan to pursue his performing and composing full time. He happily lives back in the Big Rapids are with Adriana, their sons Gordon and Noah, and dogs Bartok, Elliott, Charlie and Dizzy. He has signficantly less hair than the above photograph might lead one to believe.
Tuba Bach Chamber Music Festival Board Members
| Dr. Edward K. Mallett | Artistic Director, Founder, Artist in Residence |
| Jerena Keys | Financial Secretary |
| Glen Pepper | Financial Advisor |
Dr. Richard Scott Cohen |
Artistic Advisor |
Adriana Mallett |
Grant Coordinator |
Tuba Bach Committees:
Education
| Kendall Schroeder, Chair |
| Kent Boulton |
| Scott Cohen |
Marketing
| Jeff Gabalis, Chair |
| Gordon Mallett |
Fundraising
| Adriana Mallett, Chair |
| Steve Miller |
| Glen Pepper |
Hospitality
| Janet Mallett, Chair |
| Katie Blackburn |
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (21 March 1685 O.S. – 28 July 1750 N.S.) was a prolific German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he introduced no new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, a control of harmonic and motivic organisation from the smallest to the largest scales, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France.
Revered for their intellectual depth and technical and artistic beauty, JS Bach's works include the Brandenburg concertos; the Goldberg Variations; the English Suites, French Suites, Partitas, and Well-Tempered Clavier; the Mass in B Minor; the St Matthew Passion; The Musical Offering; The Art of Fugue; the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo; the Cello Suites; more than 200 surviving cantatas; and a similar number of organ works, including the famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Although not always appreciated during his own lifetime, and considered to be "old-fashioned" by his contemporaries, especially late in his career, today Bach is considered one of the most famous and influential composers of all time. (From Wikipedia)
Biography of J.S. Bach