Professional percussionists Katalin La Favre and Brian Calhoon have created an innovative way to perform Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.”
They’re using two vibraphones, a refurbished antique glockenspiel, which La Favre says sounds like a little glass of Champagne, children’s hand bells, tuned glass bottles, a hammered dulcimer and two tongue drums, which are tunable percussion instruments made of steel.
Together they have created Bach’s Music Box, which they’ll perform at 4 p.m. March 5 at the Byron Colby Barn in Grayslake as part of the Early Music Series.
The duo met while earning degrees in percussion performance from the San Francisco Conservatory Music. Calhoon was a senior when La Favre was a freshman, and their teacher had them perform vibraphone duo. “It was friendship and musical bonding immediately,” Calhoon said.
Both went on to earn a living in music with Calhoon playing show tunes on the marimba and La Favre teaching and performing sound meditations with various percussion instruments. La Favre’s idea to arrange a piece Bach originally wrote for harpsichord came when she was living in a tiny apartment in France when the pandemic started.
“There was a strict quarantine and like everybody else I was trying to figure out something to do,” she recalled. “This idea of doing Bach on really unusual percussion instruments had been floating in my mind for a while. The ‘Goldberg Variations’ had always intrigued me. It’s an iconic piece.”
She worked with instruments she had in her apartment — a vibraphone, a tongue drum, a bowl from her kitchen that just happened to play the right note she needed, a glockenspiel and some hand bells. She also discovered a hammered dulcimer that had been tucked away for quite a while and needed a heavy dose of tuning.
“My teacher in France used to say, ‘From constraint, creativity is born.’ I think this a reflection of that idea.”
La Favre knew she’d need another percussionist to perform with her, she contacted Calhoon. “I knew he would be great for the project,” she said. “He’s very open minded and very creative. We did the arrangements together. In college, we studied with the same teacher who was a very respected interpreter of Bach on the marimba.”
Calhoon said the project “was a great way for me to go back to my roots.” While working on the project, he said, “If Bach had a music box, what would it sound like?”
They created an arrangement with mostly metallic instruments and high-pitched bells, which Calhoon said gives the piece “a certain nostalgia, and as sense of childlike creativity and experimentation.
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“Some of these strange instruments didn’t exist during Bach’s time. We would like to think Bach would enjoy hearing this music celebrated in a different way,” Calhoon said. La Favre has a collection of ornate music boxes, which inspired them when working on the arrangement. Calhoon said the piece, throughout, sounds like various music boxes. The piece begins and ends with an aria performed on two vibraphones.
“As we go on, the arrangements get more and more experimental,” La Favre said. “We start using different kinds of sticks and different techniques. When we get to the peak in the middle, it just goes completely crazy. Then slowly we go backward, working toward the vibraphone duet.”
They’re premiering Bach’s Music Box on March 3 in Ohio and then giving their next performance at the Colby Barn on March 5.
“We want the whole thing to feel like this dream in which you immerse yourself in this sound,” Calhoon said.
Katalin La Favre and Brian Calhoon: Bach’s Music Box
When: 4 p.m. March 5
Where: Byron Colby Barn, 1561 Jones Point Road, Grayslake
Tickets: $20 cash or check; ages 16 and younger free
Information: 847-543-1202; facebook.com and search Early Music at the Barn
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.