April 25 Concert an Anniversary Event for Music Professor

Professor of Music Robert Reynolds rehearses the final movement of Frederic Chopin's
"Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21" at Columbia Christian Church. He will perform
the piece at a 7 p.m. CT concert on April 25.

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- Nearly half a century ago, an aspiring Southcentral Kentucky concert pianist received one of the more valuable endorsements in Kentucky when he was mentioned in the widely-read "Joe Creason's Kentucky."

In his column, which appeared in the then-statewide Courier-Journal, Creason reported that Bobby Reynolds of Campbellsville, Ky., was scheduled to give "his first full-scale recital of Bach, Mozart, Brahms and Chopin" on May 9, 1965, at Campbellsville College.

Nearly 45 years later, Reynolds -- who is now known as Lindsey Wilson College Professor of Music Robert Reynolds -- will be one of the featured performers at an April 25 concert at Columbia Christian Church.

Reynolds -- who will appear with the Lindsey Wilson Concert Choir, the Louisville Symphony and Lindsey Wilson Concert Band -- will perform the first movement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467"; the third movement of Robert Schumann's Piano Quartet in E-flat, Op. 47"; and the final movement of Frederic Chopin's "Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21."

Other pieces to be featured at the concert -- titled "Dedicated to Dialogue: A Grand Musical Academy" -- include Mozart's "Praise the Lord, Our God, Forever"; the "Kyrie" from Franz Schubert's Mass in G; the rondo movement from Mozart's "Horn Concerto No. 4, K. 495"; three selections from Gabriel Faure's Requiem; and George Philipp Telemann's Laudate Jehovam.

The concert -- which is part of the 2009-10 Lindsey Wilson Cultural Affairs Series -- begins at 7 p.m. CT. It is free and open to the public.

The concert will be conducted by Associate Professor of Music and Religion Gerald L. Chafin and Director of Instrumental Ensembles Tim Allen. It will also feature Lindsey Wilson student and soprano Gloria San Miguel of Grayson, Ky., and LWC student Paige Coomer of Columbia on the Mozart horn concerto.

Reynolds, who has been a member of the Lindsey Wilson faculty since 1980, grew up in Taylor County with dreams of playing basketball. But, as Creason wrote, listening to one of Van Cliburn's classic recordings made Reynolds "realize suddenly how the piano could be played."

"From then on his consuming interesting has been music; endless lessons and four hours of practice daily became the minimum demand he made of himself," Creason wrote in the May 9, 1965, column.

Reynolds told Creason that his life's ambition was to become a concert pianist, adding that "it may take 50 years."

It took Reynolds considerably less time to become a well-known concert pianist. Looking back on that column, Reynolds said that dream played an important part in his life.

"It is perhaps most critical that a vital part of life, experienced at any level, is to have a dream -- a reason, call it a purpose, used at once as fuel and retardant," Reynolds said recently. "The realities of my dream were built from an assimilation of relationships maneuvered into my path to kindle the desire for musical knowledge and stimulate an ability to form images and ideas in the mind, especially of things and sounds never seen, heard or experienced directly."

Reynolds credits several individuals for helping him accomplish his goal.

"At every juncture appeared an architect strategically placed in the role of an educator: my family; a fifth-grade art teacher; elementary, middle and high school music teachers; three college music professors; graduate piano professors; and most importantly my wife and children," he said.

Reynolds noted that his life has been filled with "more stillness and study than sound."

"In those five decades since I made a naïve decision to follow a dream of playing piano on the concert stage, there has been more stillness and study than sound, more pondering and practicing than performing," he said. "Such an unhurried musical emergence is summed up by a single line in John Buchan's novel, Greenmantle: 'Then slowly from the silence there distilled drops of music.'"

Reynolds, who has taught thousands of Lindsey Wilson students, also likens his profession to that of rural doctor.

"I have found that every instance of sharing music demands an attitude akin to that of the old-time country doctor -- be ready to perform your musical oath for anyone, at any level," he said.

And Reynolds said he is still developing, working toward his dream.

"My dream is still coming to pass, only possible by the Grace of God and people, and is best described in the Bible in the book of Matthew 25:29: 'To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who are unfaithful even what little they have will be taken away,'" he said.

LWC  Associate Professor of Music and Religion Gerald L. Chafin, left, and Louisville
Symphony concertmaster Jack Griffin discuss the upcoming "Dedicated to Dialogue: A
Grand Musical Academy" concert, which will be performed at 7 p.m. CT on April 25 at
Columbia Christian Church.