An alumni from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music is scheduled to perform a concert in Rapid City. The one night event will feature the musician performing three arrangements by Bach on his viola.
Samuel Nelson performs a selection from Bach’s sixth cello suite. He chose to play compositions that were written for other instruments on his viola.
“I wanted to do it from three different instruments because Bach actually never wrote anything for the viola itself, for the modern viola because the modern viola was not really an instrument that had soloistic capacity back in the time. It was more for like orchestral playing and accompaniments. I mean, that’s great too, but this showcases a lot of different aspects of the viola without a single one of the works actually being written for it,” says Nelson.
He adds it’s important to keep people interested in classical music and keep the genre alive.
He says people need to find a part of classical they can relate to.
“My ultimate goal is honestly to spread the knowledge because American’s, we aren’t attached to classical music whatsoever because it’s not in our roots like it is for the European’s. And so I like to expose people to music. Or I like to get them to find something that they like in the classical or the western art repertoire,” explains Nelson.
Nelson says he hopes to share what he’s been working on with his home town.