At a recent performance, you could hear a pin drop when Maria van Kalken raised her hand, motioning to the chorus. For more than 37 seasons, van Kalken, director of the Old North Festival Chorus and minister of music at Old North Church, has led the Old North Festival Chorus and Orchestra holiday concerts. On Dec. 6 and 7, the much anticipated 45th annual holiday concerts did not disappoint. The Festival Chorus draws from the church’s senior choir and singers across the community. The first half of the 90-minute concert featured a Haydn mass and chorales by Bach and Mendelssohn.
The second half had a lively twist, with guest narrator Caleb Mayo reciting poetry by Shakespeare, Thomas Campion, Billy Collins and Robert Burns, to name a few, interspersed with musical selections by John Rutter, Dan Forrest and Mark Hayes. Mayo is an internationally acclaimed actor and Shakespeare scholar.
The inspiration and genius behind the sound of music is van Kalken. What many don’t know is that the longtime Marblehead resident hails from Manchester, New Hampshire, growing up in a musical family. Her parents were both of Dutch descent, her father emigrating from Rotterdam, Holland. Her mother was a piano teacher. When she was in high school, she knew she wanted to be a musician and excelled in both clarinet and piano.
“Strangely, what happened was that I was drawn to counterpoint, music that’s more suited to organ, which is both vocal- and keyboard-inspired, popular in the Baroque period. I fell in love with early music — that’s music composed up through the death of Bach, up to 1750,” she said.
After high school in Manchester, van Kalken headed to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. “When I was accepted, I knew I had to go. It changed my entire life. I met my best friend, Kathleen Fay, at Oberlin. She is the executive director of the Boston Early Music Festival. She helps with the Festival Chorus marketing and fundraising, and I am part time on her staff at BEMF.”
In 1982, her senior year at Oberlin, she applied for a Rotary International scholarship which she used to attend Sweelinck Conservatory, an academy for gifted musicians in Amsterdam, Holland. “Holland is one of the most amazing places in the universe for pipe organ study and performance. They also added another three months to my residency for Dutch language study, so I was lucky enough to study the language of my heritage.”
Following her stint in Holland, she entered New England Conservatory in 1986 to complete her master’s degree in organ performance. Initially, her plan wasn’t to be a church musician. “Then I had an ‘aha’ moment that if I was going to play the pipe organ, I needed an organ to practice on. It’s a tough instrument because every organ is different from the next. You never get acclimated to one instrument. You don’t get privacy. I used to practice at King’s Chapel in Boston. They’d be doing tours while I was playing,” she said, laughing.
Lucky for Marbleheaders, van Kalken accepted her job at Old North in 1989, and the rest is history. “I always dreamed of living near the ocean, which is one of the reasons I ended up in Marblehead. It fits in with my Dutch upbringing and European sensibility. Marblehead is a seaside town reminiscent of these beautiful little European towns by the ocean. It’s always evolving and always motivating. Being a musician promotes a stressful lifestyle, and being by the ocean dials it down by a certain percentage,” she said.
In a fitting tribute, the Dec. 6 performance was dedicated to Dr. Maximiliaan (Max) Kaulbach, who grew up in Holland and sang with the Festival Chorus for three decades. Before his passing in May, Kaulbach spoke highly of van Kalken. “What made the concert so special was that the music director was Maria van Kalken. She was an excellent conductor and organist. The performances were a highlight of my musical year. I was so happy to be a part of this group for 30 years,” Kaulbach wrote in his memoir.
Van Kalken’s real passion is conducting. “That we are going to organize 24 musicians in a pit and 90 singers up in the risers is both terrifying and exciting. I have to make it happen between everybody. We have to pull it all together and make it work and become one. When you trust people to do their best, they do it. Music is a great unifier.”
Aside from the church choir and Festival Chorus, there is van Kalken’s other life: The Boston Early Music Festival is an international music organization. “I have carved out a way to have two part-time jobs, which are both full-time responsibilities. In January and August every year, we travel to Germany to make recordings with BEMF, one of which just got nominated for a Grammy — our seventh Grammy nomination. We produce a festival that happens every two years, the largest of its kind in North America. We present a fully staged Baroque opera at the Cutler Majestic in the Theater District. We produce 18 concerts with artists from all over the world within one week,” she said. “Next year, BEMF is headed to Magdeburg, Germany, on an opera tour. And just before Easter, I conduct a big requiem project with the Festival Chorus.”
There is no downtime for van Kalken, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
As for future goals, van Kalken wants to keep doing what she’s doing. “I just want to keep going.”
Van Kalken is appreciated by the town. “Marbleheaders have discerning tastes, which is very inspiring. Old North is my family. It’s much more than a job. These are the people I want to be with. I care about them as much as they care about me. I’m here every holiday and every Christmas Eve,” she added.
Old North Church is holding three Christmas Eve services at 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. All are welcome.
**This story was updated on Dec. 22 to reflect that the first Christmas Eve service is at 5 p.m.
