White River Chamber Orchestra Spring Concert Saturday

The White River Chamber Orchestra will present their spring concert on Saturday at Legacy Bible Church at 7:30 p.m. The theme of the concert is “An Evening with Bach and Handel”. Featured music will include Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, selected movements from Handel’s Water Music, arias from Handel’s Messiah (with special soloists Mindy Root and Shockley Flick), plus other orchestral music by these two great masters of the Baroque era. Tickets are $30 for adults and free for those under 18 years. Tickets can be purchased at FishersMusicWorks.org. Legacy Bible Church is located at 13490 Howe Road in Fishers.

1685 was a great year for music in Germany, as both masters were born there in the same year. However, their lives went in very different directions. Bach spent his entire life in Germany, composing mostly for the church, and in his lifetime he was more known for his virtuoso mastery of the organ than for his compositions. He even said at one point that playing the organ was easy: “You have only to press down the right key at the right time, and the instrument plays itself!” It wasn’t until well after his death that others, especially Felix Mendelssohn, recognized the genius in his music. Handel spent a great deal of time in Italy composing opera, and then later lived in England where he composed many oratorios, the most famous of which is Messiah. Despite being born in the same country in the same year, there is no evidence that the two men ever met.