Music by Claude Debussy & Leon Boëllmann

Kelly Rizzo-McLain, Pianist & Johnny Kash, Organist

Sunday, May 17, 2026 at 3pm

Kelly Rizzo-McLain is a pianist, vocalist, and liturgical musician who has served parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit and Diocese of Lansing since 2010. She has directed music at Resurrection Parish (Canton), St. Joseph Parish (Dexter), and currently at St. Thomas a Beckett (Canton), and has accompanied choirs throughout Metro Detroit. Kelly earned her B.M. in Piano Performance from Grand Valley State University, where she studied with Aviram Reichert and performed/recorded with the GVSU New Music Ensemble, and her M.M. in Music Theory Pedagogy from Michigan State University. She lives in Canton with her husband and two children.

Organist Johnny Kash and pianist Kelly Rizzo-McLain present The French Connection, a program featuring the music of Léon Boëllmann and Claude Debussy. Boëllmann, best known for his dramatic Suite Gothique, embodies the late-Romantic French organ tradition with its bold harmonies, cathedral grandeur, and symphonic color. Debussy, a modernist visionary at the dawn of the 20th century, transformed the musical landscape through shimmering textures and impressionistic tone painting; his beloved Suite Bergamasque—with its poetic elegance and famous Clair de lune—reveals the composer’s gift for color, atmosphere, and gentle lyricism. Heard together, their works trace a fascinating arc in French music from Gothic-tinged Romanticism to the refined, dreamlike world of Impressionism, showcasing the expressive possibilities of both organ and piano.