From top: Columbus Indiana Philharmonic Artistic Director David Bowden is shown during a 2020 performance. // The Philharmonic Chorus performs at a past concert. Republic file photos
THE concert today is titled “Joy! Beethoven’s Ninth.”
But the heralded composer will have to make room for another, more contemporary star at the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic concert at 7:30 p.m. at Columbus East High School’s Clarence E. Robbins Auditorium. That would be symphonist Vaughan Williams, who died in 1958, and his piece “Serenade To Music,” which the ensemble will play just before Beethoven’s symphonic masterpiece.
Philharmonic Artistic Director David Bowden said the work “will be played as the musical mission statement at my very first concert in Columbus in September 1987. This is a very deeply personal statement about who I am and what I have worked to offer to our community.”
Bloomington’s Bowden, 68, the only conductor the local professional ensemble has known since its inception 35 years ago, is retiring at season’s end with the SALUTE! concert on May 27. He always has been wildly passionate communicating music’s impact, often breaking into a lilting melody or lyric in the middle of media interviews.
When Bowden introduced the Williams’ composition in 1987 with what was then called the Pro Musica Orchestra, he said: “My mission, the mission of our orchestra, is to serve music. It’s not to serve me; it’s not to serve the orchestra or the board; it’s not even to serve you.
We are really here to serve MUSIC. And I thought that the best way that we could demonstrate this was to present ‘Serenade To Music’ and share the beauty of this particular work with you.”
Bowden also mentioned one other thought that he still finds true today. He sees the Williams’ composition as a way of “sharing the wonder and beauty of music and finding joy and fulfillment in the richness music brings to our lives.”
