Presented by Equity Bank
If you’ve ever attended a free lunchtime Brown Bag concert at Westport Presbyterian Church, you have Marian Thomas to thank.
The classically trained musician and social justice advocate combined her two passions by offering the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his classical friends to the community when she founded the concert series in 1994.
But starting a concert series from scratch was nothing compared to building her own harpsichord. “In 1980, my husband, a chemistry professor at UMKC, had taken a sabbatical at Brandeis University near Boston, and I and our three children went with him. I got a part-time job working for the harpsichord workshop of Frank Hubbard and proceeded after working there to build my own harpsichord,” she blithely notes (more on that later).
When they returned to Kansas City, Thomas began doing harpsichord gigs and tuning and regulating harpsichords in the metro area.
“I’ve had a varied musical career in Kansas City,” she says. She was organist in two churches—Linwood United Church, from 1969 to1994, and the second from 1994 to 2009 at Westport Presbyterian, the one that had a fire in 2011 which destroyed much of the church interior including its organ and two pianos. “I became a church member there because I liked its involvement in social justice issues, and I had made many good friends.”
Her other musical endeavors were teaching piano and harpsichord in her home studio, teaching music twice a week at Purple Dragon Preschool for 32 years, and teaching music at P.S.1 Elementary School for 12 years.
In 2006, the Brown Bag Concerts were incorporated into the nonprofit Westport Center for the Arts, which included foreign films, online tours of art museums, dance groups, staged readings of original plays and eventually fully staged plays, and a program for children called “Kids Team Up for Art.” Thomas retired from directing the Brown Bag Concerts Series after doing it for 21 years but continues to perform on her harpsichord about once a year.
Her upcoming “gratitude” event is the Brown Bag Concert by Marian Thomas and Friends on Friday, March 22 (the day after J.S. Bach’s 338th birthday) from noon to 1 p.m. at Westport Presbyterian Church. Admission is free, with donations appreciated.
How did you get interested in the harpsichord?
John Hamilton, my organ teacher at the University of Oregon, was a harpsichordist. I attended his recitals and loved the repertoire he played. I had studied the pipe organ at Oberlin College and Conservatory, and was drawn to music by Bach, Telemann, Couperin, and Sweelinck. While working as organist at a church in Boston, I had to use their harpsichord while the pipe organ was being renovated. That whet my appetite to have my own instrument. Professor Hamilton had told me I should build my own harpsichord to understand the instrument thoroughly.
During my husband’s sabbatical at Brandeis, I found work at the Frank Hubbard Harpsichord Workshop in Waltham, near Boston. I drilled wrest planks, cut plectra, and packed the components used in harpsichord kits for mailing. When I inherited money from my grandmother, I decided to use it to build a harpsichord.
What does it take to build your own harpsichord?
Since I am not a carpenter, I started with a “kit” containing the wood cabinet already partially constructed, two keyboards partly finished, and all the tools and accessories I would need, including a very detailed instruction manual. All of this cost $5,000, the amount I inherited. I also needed a workroom big enough for sawhorses to hold up the instrument so I could install the case’s inner braces and the two keyboards. I used a Dremel drill and had to be extremely precise in all I did. I had skills as an artist and craftsperson, so was not intimidated by that aspect, but I read the instructions for each new step over and over before moving on!
The experts at Hubbard Harpsichord shaved the underneath part of the soundboard for me, as they knew exactly how to enhance the sounds produced by plucking strings. They also installed the soundboard, which I then painted following historic customs and design. Back in Kansas City, my husband helped me install 183 strings, which required great patience! The final skill required was to voice each plectrum properly. I used Delrin, a modern plastic, instead of the crow quills used in the 18th century. Each one must be shaped with a scalpel, so a supply of Band-Aids came in handy! It took me about 300 hours to build my harpsichord. Its “coming out party” in 1984 was very exciting for me and for my musician friends!
What are you most proud of in your Kansas City music career?
I prefer to say what I am most grateful for, and the list is very long! All the people who let me share my love of music with them: piano and harpsichord students who took lessons long enough to be able to enjoy making music the rest of their lives; seminary students I taught, who came to appreciate how important music is in the worship life and community ministry of the church; local musicians who participated in the Brown Bag Concert; the Doug Talley Quartet who came on each Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday to perform jazz by African-American composers and to lead the audience in standing to sing Lift Every Voice and Sing; the members of Westport Presbyterian Church who agreed that the organ lost in the fire of 2011 should be replaced by the Pasi Opus 24, one of the new gems in the crown of pipe organs in Kansas City. I am especially grateful for the collaboration and encouragement of two ministers with whom I was privileged to work: Larry Yeo at Linwood United Church and Scott Myers at Westport Presbyterian Church.
Tell us about your “gratitude” concert in Kansas City at Westport Presbyterian in March.
Before Westport Center for the Arts became a nonprofit organization in 2006, everyone who performed on the Brown Bag Concerts volunteered their talent. I often collaborated with the performers as pianist or harpsichordist.
There have been several Brown Bag concerts held in March to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach. Rebecca Bell and I, with help from Leora Nauta, performed the complete Well Tempered Clavier by Bach. The March 22nd concert will celebrate Bach’s 338th birthday with performances of his oboe sonata by Meribeth Risebig and one of his flute sonatas by Lyra Pherigo, current director of the Brown Bag Concerts. I will play the harpsichord for those pieces. Robert Pherigo on piano will collaborate with Eman Chaseltori on cello for Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, and my solo offering will be the Aria and seven of the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, played on the harpsichord I constructed 40 years ago.