Louisville Bach Society’s Dickinsons to retire

By Elizabeth Kramer

When the Louisville Bach Society concludes today’s performance
of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B minor, it will also mark the
end of this 47-year-old community choir founded by Melvin and
Margaret Dickinson during the first few years of their
marriage.

The society spans their personal and professional lives here.
The Dickinsons launched it not long after they earned their
master’s degrees in music, had their first child and moved to
Louisville. Melvin took a job teaching organ in the University of
Louisville’s School of Music; Margaret started as the organist at
Calvary Episcopal Church.

But the Dickinsons aren’t making a habit of looking back or
dwelling on this concert being the last.

“Last time?” Margaret Dickinson responded when asked what she
thinks about this occasion. “We can’t think about that.”

“It’s bittersweet,” Melvin Dickinson chimed in.

In the weeks leading up to today’s performance — music written
by Bach in the 1740s and known as one of the composer’s most
towering pieces — Melvin Dickinson has kept his focus on the score,
as well as the seating charts for the volunteer chorus of more than
60 members and nearly 20 orchestra members. He works at a large
table in the addition to their home, complete with a cathedral
ceiling to accommodate a 16-foot-tall house organ with 850 pipes
and 15 stops. He’s surrounded by books, music and other manuscripts
that the Bach Society has collected over the decades.

As he assembled the singers’ seating chart, Dickinson has had to
take into account some members who have told him that performing at
this last concert would be too sad for them. Other old-timers have
called and begged back in for the final performance