LITTLE ROCK (AP) – It was hushed inside a 140-year-old cathedral on the outskirts of Little Rock’s downtown as about five dozen people sat in the pews during a recent lunch break in January.
The nave filled with the sounds of the Gothic pipe organ, and a screen showed a man performing the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Those gathered were there for the third concert in a series Colin MacKnight is performing over the next year to commemorate the 275th anniversary of Bach’s death.
MacKnight, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s music director, is performing all of Bach’s organ works throughout 2025 – one lunch break at a time. The ambitious plan entails performing 18 hours of music in half-hour increments nearly every Wednesday.
“I’ve wanted to for a really long time because it’s, I think, the most thorough way of immersing myself in the brilliance of Johann Sebastian Bach,” MacKnight said one morning as he rehearsed in the empty cathedral the day before a concert.
The concerts in Little Rock are among several events around the world this year commemorating the German composer’s legacy and the anniversary of his death.
MacKnight, who is from Bethesda, Maryland, has been music director at Trinity for three years. He said the first time he remembers hearing Bach was at a relative’s funeral when he was about 12 years old.
“Something about hearing it that time just really mesmerised me and that was the beginning of my love of Bach,” he said.
The 31-year-old’s hands move easily between the four keyboards of the organ console, flanked by knobs controlling different sounds that are assembled into various combinations.
Underneath, his feet press on the pedalboards – combining to create the notes of Bach’s works. MacKnight, who has played the organ since he was 16, acknowledges how dizzying the sight of the instrument can be for newcomers.
“If you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s a little overwhelming, like an airplane console,” he said.
