By David Pihl and Maria Ferrante December 4, 2:00 p.m.
David Alan Pihl, organ and piano, with Maria Ferrante, soprano, will perform a program featuring the majestic J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in E-flat on the Johnson & Son pipe organ; art songs by Catalan composer Federico Mompou (1893-1987) and Johannes Brahms; and a lush piano Barcarolle by Frédérick Chopin. Inspired by nature and the inquiring minds of the New England transcendentalist philosophers, Mr. Pihl will also perform piano works of American composers Edward MacDowell, Charles Ives, and Alan Hovhaness, on the newly acquired vintage Steinway piano at the Stone Church Cultural Center, 283 Main Street, Gilbertville 01031. Their concert entitled Bach and Beyond, the Boothman Memorial Concert, will be held at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, December 4, 2022. Tickets are $25 at the door or online at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/friendsofthestonechurch/785671/
David Pihl has performed widely as a piano soloist and accompanist in the Northeastern United States and on many recordings. A piano student of Michael Kramer and of Anthony di Bonaventura, he studied vocal accompaniment in Europe under Elly Ameling and Rudolf Jansen. He studied at Boston University School of Music and received his Master of Music in Piano Performance at the University of Lowell.
Soprano Maria Ferrante maintains a full schedule of performances on both the local and international stage. Her name has become familiar to audiences the world over. A winner of the Mario Lanza Voice Competition, she has been acclaimed by the Washington Post and by Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe, who called her “a true singing actress.” Her performances have delighted audiences from New York to the Virgin Islands, in Prague, Japan and London as well as in Boston venues Jordan Hall and Sanders Theater. This will be her third appearance at the Stone Church, which she appreciates as a performance venue and a place to enjoy concerts.
The Bach Preludium and Fugue in E-flat (nicknamed “St. Anne” for its theme resembling “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”) are a fitting choice to showcase the melodious and balanced sound of the 1874 Johnson & Son organ at the Stone Church. Their many dotted rhythms that display Bach’s mastery as a keyboard composer. Mr. Pihl, who plays organ regularly in a Worcester church, selected this work out of his admiration for Albert Schweitzer, whose writing did much to popularize and explain Bach’s greatness.
Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata was inspired by figures associated with transcendentalism, a belief in the inherent goodness of people and nature as practiced by The Alcotts, Emerson and Thoreau. Including sections without bar lines, the composition induces players to approach it with an improvisational attitude, just as ‘the oak tree in May doesn’t always play the same tune that it shouts out in October.’
Each year since the death of their co-founder Don Boothman in 2016, Friends of the Stone Church (FOSC) have dedicated a memorial organ concert in his name, celebrating the 1874 Gilbertville pipe organ by Wm. Johnson & Son of Westfield. As the creator of Friends of the Gilbertville Organ, lovingly known as FOGO, Boothman joyfully presented concerts and preserved the 1874 instrument for twenty-one seasons, from 1900 to 2011. He presented the most talented New England organists with other soloists, including Ms. Ferrante, contributing his own velvety bass-baritone numbers at every concert. FOGO concerts developed public support for the preservation of the English Gothic stone building now known as a Cultural Center, formerly the Gilbertville Trinitarian Congregational Church.
The concert is sponsored by 
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FOSC is a Card to Culture Participant.
Friends of the Stone Church 