Fascinating Concert with Early Music Michigan

From MAJIC 2008-2009 Concerts

Early Music Michigan is a group of musicians who perform a wide variety of concerts featuring music from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras.

MAJIC was fortunate enough to have members of the group, directed by Eric Strand, guest Baroque violinist Edith Hines.

The all J.S. Bach program began with a solo partita and sonata in the first half followed by his partita in d minor that was played once as a solo and then a second time accompanied by the vocal lines that underly the chorales hidden in the work. The result was an educational experince that offered a new way of listening to the music of J.S. Bach.

Artworks by Mary Andersen filled our narthex space. They vineyard and lakeshore landscapes accompanied the mood set by the music!

Thanks to everyone on the witness committee for a great reception!

From MAJIC 2008-2009 Concerts

Organissimo Opens the Second Season

From MAJIC 2008-2009 Concerts

For its opening concert of the season, MAJIC had the honor of hosting one of the best bands in town--Organissimo. The band started off with some of their lively tunes, and I noticed half of the heads in the audience bobbing up and down. Organissimo featured tunes from their newly released CD Groovadelphia. It is always a treat for someone like me, who has been following the band for five years to hear them keep writing and playing new stuff. What a blessing for Grand Rapids!

Thanks to the band for donating a portion of the CD sales to the Coalition to End Homelessness, and to everyone who attended the concert. We had over 80 people at the event and raised $680.00!

Local artist Mic Carlson graced our narthex art gallery with a beautiful selection of his original paintings and a set of bronze sculptures and prints inspired by St. Francis of Assisi.

Thanks to Kirby Hanson for shooting some great photos of the concert and reception. Be sure to check them out on the right hand side of the screen. Click on the photo album to see them in a larger format.

From MAJIC 2008-2009 Concerts

Final Concert of the Season: Folias Latin Dance Project and Hugo Claudin

The final MAJIC concert of the season offered up a great art and music pairing. The local Grand Rapids flute and guitar duo Folias, combined with percussionist/composer Scott Harding and flutist Tess Miller to form their new group called Folias Latin Dance Project. The music program featured all original arrangements and compositions of works from Argentina, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

The art work by Hugo Claudin was from a series of his called Mexicains sans frontiers that was inspired by a trip he took to an artist colony in Baja California. "The light is refracted in a special way" says Claudin about how his works that were inspired by this place near the Tropic of Cancer. Music such as Folias' original, Maufo Vega, a work about Big Bend National Park, also captures the way light is different further South and in the deserts of Texas.

Grand Rapids Guitar Quartet Offers Something for Everyone

The Grand Rapids Guitar Quartet was started by four professional guitarists and instructors in the Grand Rapids area. Their MAJIC debut marked their second year anniversary as a group together.

Their concert featured a little something for everyone: Renaissance dance pieces, Bach's sixth Brandenburg Concerto, two transcriptions of works by Maurice Ravel, a new premier by Grand Rapids composer Andrew Bergeron called Argentine Dance Suite, and a transcription of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik done by Brian Morris.

It was great to see a varied audience for a classical music concert including a lot of children!

Thank you to Charles Andrews for displaying his photographs from Zambia and Madagascar.

Thanks also to Kirby Hanson for the beautiful photos from this evening. Click on the slide show and scroll to the end of the show to see up close shots of the guys with their guitars.

A Lovely Evening with Sunny Wilkinson, Ron Newman, and Alina Poroshina

This concert was not only a great pairing with the husband and wife duo, Sunny Wilkinson (vocal jazz) and Ron Newman (jazz piano) but also with the beautiful life size paintings done by Lansing based artist Alina Poroshina.

The music was mesmerizing. Sunny held the audiences with her ever changing palate of vocal sounds and story telling characters. Ron dazzled with his crazy jazz chops that surprised the audience as well as Sunny, who smiled joyfully at him throughout the concert.

Alina, a native of Russia, showed paintings that depicted urban Grand Rapids scenes with close-ups of people in the forefront, many of them playing instruments, all of them a poetic statement to life in the city.

Singer Songwriter Dean Windemuller

Local singer, guitarist, and song writer Dean Windermuller performed for the February MAJIC concert last Friday the 8th. The concert was well attended, about 70 people, and Dean graced the series with a set of pieces written especially for his performance at Bethlehem Church all on the subject of Social Justice. He performed solo, with his band Open Land and with member of Tango Folias. The works displayed covered a variety of musical palates from jazz, blues, funk, and even opera as was the instrumental/voice combination used for Andrew Bergeron's arrangement of Dean's newest original tune called "New Sparrow" that speaks of the experience of men on the street. As was the case with the other concerts on the series, the audience was comprised of a nice mix of people from Bethlehem Church, those who were friends of the musicians, and many who came out in support of the social justice cause of the series.

Thanks to Debra Dieppa from the Heartside Gallery who displayed her art in the narthex!

Shakuhachi Grand Master Michael Gould

Last Friday the MAJIC series hosted Michael Gould who is a master of the shakuhachi, a Japanese flute made of bamboo. His presentation included a description of how the instrument was made, the history of the way the instrument was used starting as far back in Japan as the 8th century, and demonstrations of the many performance techniques of the shakuhachi. He began his performance playing in the Bethlehem Church sanctuary an hour before the concert. Folks tentatively walked in, not sure at first if they were interrupting. However, as the concert time approached it became apparent that Michael was inviting people into the sanctuary space with the sound of his shakuhachi.

James Fissel presented a beautiful collection of paintings that were part of the Eyekons Gallery show "A Mystery Revealed". Each of the works contain an orb, a spiritual symbol that is a perfect match for a concert that features the shakuhachi. When I mentioned Fissel's "orb" theme to the audience, Michael Gould responded by lifting his flute to show them the round dark space at the end of his shakuachi.

Most of the comments about the evening highlighted that this was a unique and refreshing event.