A Place to Be: Gospel Resonances in Classical Music

At its most basic, music is a collection of sounds. How those sounds are organized varies by country and culture and reflects their values, history, and heart-longings.

Join Tokyo-based American musician Roger W. Lowther on a journey through the landscapes of Western and Japanese classical music and explore their unique and fascinating differences. Roger will lead from the piano as he demonstrates the musical languages of each tradition and show how they contain hidden pointers to gospel hope in a world full of suffering and pain.

This dual-format lecture-performance is geared toward a general audience; no musical background necessary.

About the Speaker

Roger W. Lowther is the founder and director of Community Arts Tokyo, director of Faith & Art at Grace City Church Tokyo, and coordinator for the MAKE Collective, a global network of artists working in foreign missions. He has been serving with Mission to the World in Japan since 2005. Roger received a master of music from The Juilliard School and a bachelor of science from Columbia University. He is currently pursuing a master of arts in theological studies at Reformed Theological Seminary.

Roger has won numerous organ performance competitions and released five albums, most recently COVENANT, with works by Bach and Beethoven. He has also authored The Broken Leaf: Meditations on Art, Life, and Faith in Japan (2019), Pippy the Piano and the Very Big Wave (2020), Aroma of Beauty (2021), and A Taste of Grace (2024). He lives in downtown Tokyo with his wife, Abi, and has four boys. www.rogerwlowther.com

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