Big Sky Alive! presents 'Bach, Beethoven and the Starry Sky'

Big Sky Alive! continues its Mostly Monday Music Series Monday, Jan. 13, with a concert featuring the world premiere of a piece for solo cello performed by Griffin Browne, principal cellist with the Glacier Symphony. Titled “Where Mountains Kiss the Starry Sky,” the piece is composed by Craig Thomas Naylor, who founded the Big Sky Alive! nonprofit music organization in 2012. As its music director, Naylor holds a Doctorate in Music Composition degree from the University of Southern California and has an extensive resume as a composer, conductor and performer.

Naylor describes the piece as a stream-of-consciousness excursion of hiking in Montana’s majestic mountains.

“Thoughts of work to do, errands to run, obligations to fulfill intrude — but gradually fade away — leaving only peacefulness and awe at God’s handiwork,” Naylor said of his composition, adding the piece reflects the Big Sky Alive! mission to add more contemporary musical offerings by living male and female composers to the Flathead Valley.

“Starry Sky” will open the evening of music that also offers Suite No. 3 in C Major by J.S. Bach, a work for solo cello, and concludes with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 3 for cello and piano, that will bring local classical pianist Marlene Anderson to the stage. Anderson is a classically trained pianist who regularly performs across the Flathead Valley in various venues including as a church musician, accompanist for instrumentalists and vocalists, and collaborator for chamber music events.

Beyond his role with the Symphony, Browne is a private cello instructor and a free-lance musician. He received his doctoral and master’s degrees in cello performance from the University of Memphis, and his Bachelor of Music degree from Stetson University and has appeared as soloist with orchestras in Montana, Tennessee and Mississippi.

“I hope it will be an enjoyable journey from meditating in the woods of Montana, to an aural and spiritual “bath” of Bach, to ending with the deep contemplation and light-hearted joy of Beethoven’s sonata,” Browne said of the evening’s music selections.

The concert will begin at 7 p.m. at Northridge Lutheran Church, 323 Northridge Drive, Kalispell. Admission is a free-will donation ($10 is suggested) and items of non-perishable food for the Flathead Food Bank. For more information about the concert call 406-250-8867.