Stardom eluded Rob McWilliam, but not the satisfaction of performing great music. During the late 1980s and early ’90s, McWilliam played bass in the Michael Brennan Band, a danceable, funky pop group that seemed to be on the way up. “We went out to New York and played CBGB’s,” McWilliam recalls. “We played showcases for record labels. We got pretty far but just didn’t click with the record companies.”
After the band ended in 1995, McWilliam continued to play and write in the local rock arena. He was a founding member of Sometimes Y, a group that released a pair of intriguing sounds-like-no-one-else CDs, and turned up with On a Sun and The Great Outdoors, playing bass, keyboards and even bagpipes. But next week, he returns to his first love, performing a recital on the towering pipe organ at Gesu Church on the Marquette campus.
“I heard organ played when I was in grade school—that’s where the fire started,” McWilliam says. “I was fascinated by the instrument at a young age. There’s something about the complex sounds it can produce, going from a whisper to something grand and enormous. Also, there are the buildings they are usually housed in—the marvelous acoustics. As an organist, you are also playing the building along with the organ itself.”
Anchoring his upcoming recital is a work by that master organist-composer, J.S. Bach’s virtuosic Prelude and Fugue in A Major. Fast forwarding into the early 20th century, McWilliam will also perform pieces by a pair of Belgian organist-composers, Paul de Maleingreau and Joseph Jongen. “They were in the Debussy style with lots of color—you picture scenes in your mind when you hear the music,” McWilliam explains. In a similar fashion are two compositions by Pierre Cochereau, organist at Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral from the 1960s through the ’80s. Also on the program are works by two living composers, New York’s Nico Muhly and Milwaukee’s Dennis Janzer. Lending the concert a holiday tone, McWilliam will perform his arrangement of a traditional carol with vocal soloist Kateri Andress.
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McWilliam marvels over the sonic possibilities of the Gesu organ—and the building that houses it. “Every organist who plays it finds a different combination of sounds. It seems to be an infinite sound-building instrument capable of so many different combinations. And then there’s the church! Gesu has unusual characteristics as far as acoustics go. It has a very soft reverb that keeps on going and tricks your ear—you think the sound is coming from many places when it’s only coming from the organ loft.”
Rob McWilliam will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at Church of the Gesu, 1145 W. Wisconsin Ave. Admission is free.
CLASSICAL HAPPENING:
Adonis Puentes and the Voice of Cuba Orchestra
Latino Arts Auditorium
1028 S. Ninth St.
7:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 4
Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter Adonis Puentes and his Voice of Cuba Orchestra are aiming to add some heat to a December evening with the spicy rhythms of salsa and son—the latter being salsa music’s precursor: an Afro-Cuban synthesis of the Spanish canción. Grammy-nominated Adonis Puentes’ star continues to rise; his second album, Sabor A Café, was shortlisted for a 2014 Juno Award as World Music Album of the Year. He arrives in our neck of the woods under the auspices of Latino Arts—an organization that has been bringing Hispanic music and culture to our area since 1985. For tickets, visit adonispuentes.mivoz.com. (John Jahn)
