FUTURE THINGS ARE COMING >>>

When I was 10 years old, Bach was the bane of my existence. During childhood piano lessons, time spent struggling with the German composer's Inventions 1 through 5 forced me to miss out on crucial bike-riding time and numerous episodes of Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.  But if anyone can help me overcome my aversion to the music of Johann Sebastian, it's the Northwest Sinfonietta.  Director Christophe Chagnard and company present "Back To The Future" Saturday night featuring Bach's Suite No. 2 and the immortal Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, as well as Georg Philipp Telemann's Don Quichotte and Heitor Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9. Telemann was a contemporary of Bach.A lover of Bach's music, Villa-Lobos paid the ultimate musical compliment to a past master with his series of nine "Bachianas Brasileiras" - works that weld Bach's baroque forms to 20th century Brazilian rhythms and melodies. His "Bachiana Brasileira No. 9," a prelude and fugue, is arresting music with sultry Brazilian inflections.

"No matter how often we play his music, it is always humbling and awe-inspiring," the Sinfonietta states on the Broadway Center's Web site. The Sinfonietta accomplishes something that I never could - they, in the words of my piano teacher, "make zeee music come aliiiive, dahling!" 

[Rialto Theater, Saturday, March 27, 7:30 p.m., $19-$49, 310 S. Ninth St., Tacoma, 253.591.5894]