Ben Kerswell Brings The Fun “Bach”

Houston’s Bach Society just appointed its youngest artistic director ever, Ben Kerswell, and it’s time to remind everyone that Bach was pretty punk rock.

There’s an extremely accurate, yet misleading saying about classical music (by which lay people mean everything from the medieval period up through Claude Debussy, but that’s an argument for another day). It goes: “music by old white dead guys.” Johann Sebastian Bach is arguably the oldest, deadest, whitest, and guyest of them all, having laid down the very foundations of European musical theory. It’s led to an underserved reputation of Bach as a stodgy, serious codger. 

Ben Kerswell thinks that’s wrong.

“He was edgy, especially toward the end of his life,” said Kerswell. “His style of music was going out of style and becoming quite unfashionable, but he was true to himself. He went to visit the King of Prussia (Frederick II). This guy, he didn't even like Bach's music. He was into other, more fashionable styles, and he invited Bach over basically to try to make fun of him. He asked Bach to write him a six-voice fugue. Bach sent him one back in the most antiquated style possible. He called the fugue Ricercar, which is an Italian term that predates even Bach.”

Kerswell has a lifelong love of Bach. Growing up south of the Hudson River as the youngest of three children, he grew comfortable being in the presence of people older than him. His father played Bach’s inventions on the piano, and Kerswell remembers it being the first music that spoke to him.

By 12, he was learning the pipe organ at Westside Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey. It’s easily the most metal of non-electric instruments, a towering concoction of pipes, pedals, bellows, and keys that is more like playing a musical airplane than a piano. Kerswell fell more in love with Bach, who composed many famous pieces for the instrument. 

“When you hear it, it's the loudest instrument,” said Kerswell. “ And as a 10-year-old boy, hearing something that loud, you're like, yeah, that's cool. I want to try that. This church that I was growing up in, they had just gotten a new organ installed and this thing was pretty massive, 3,800 pipes or something, the size of a building. I was probably spending a bit too much of my practice time also seeing how many different loud sounds I could, you know, make that piece work on a pipe organ.” 

Eventually, Kerswell moved to Houston to attend Rice University. After graduation, he stayed to become part of the Houston Chamber Choir and the protégé of Rick Erickson at the Bach Society. Founded in 1982, the society has been presenting Bach and Bach-adjacent works throughout the Greater Houston Area for decades. 

In the world of classical music, 29-years-old might as well be a grade-schooler as far as many musical societies are concerned. Kerswell, though, won the admiration and respect of his peers through his deep knowledge of Bach, his talent and the mentoring of Erickson. 

“I just feel grateful to be mentored by the previous artistic director,” he said. “That's a relationship that is, it's hard to come by usually where a previous director of an organization like this can end up working with somebody in a collegial capacity for about four or five years to really understand what is the best way for this organization to operate and see how they run things musically.”

As artistic director, Kerswell is already shaking things up. In January, they’ll be presenting the Coffee Canata, one of Bach’s most whimsical vocal works that wouldn’t feel out of place today as a Gen-Z TikTok satire. The piece is about a father who is worried about his daughter’s addiction to coffee and coffee houses. Remember, this was still a relatively new drink for Europeans in Bach’s day, with people viewing it as a suspicious and corrupting influence. Pope Clement VIII developed a taste for the beverage and helped it spread, but there still remained an aura of disreputability.

Over the course of the composition, the father not only learns to accept his daughter’s love of coffee, he cautions any suitor that they better accept it as well. Kerswell is eager to give the piece a 21st century makeover, including transforming the narrator into a love interest.

“We're going to set it like a mini opera, and it's going to be three characters in a sort of café,” he said. “It's going to be just over the top, silly is all I can say.”

Don’t worry: Bach Society will have plenty of standard repertoire such as the St. Matthew Passion in March. There will still be the Bach that people know and love, but under Kerswell the old, dead, white guy is getting to strut about like the rock star he was.