This Super Bowl Sunday: hard-hitting chamber music for football fans

If you want to get in the mood to watch big men stomping each other to jelly, how about some chamber music?

That’s what William Ransom recommends.

Ransom will be part of a bone-crushing Emory University ensemble firing up some baroque fight songs on Super Bowl Sunday, just before they watch "Cam Newton dance all over Denver."

Called the Bach Bowl, the free all-Bach program, held at Emory University's Emerson Hall (in the Schwartz Center), will feature music for keyboards, strings, voice and a charming little portable organ called a portative.

The portative, a tabletop mini-organ complete with one pocket-sized rank of pipes, will be played by Emory professor and university organist Timothy Albrecht. Albrecht came up with the idea of the Bach Bowl, which is now a tradition of several years duration.

Will there be much overlap between the Super Bowl audience and the Bach Bowl audience? Ransom, Emory’s Mary Emerson professor of piano, wouldn’t say, but he did confess that after running some Bach, he plans on heading home and putting the game on the big screen. Whom does he favor?

Ransom knows it's easy to hate Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, if only for his Versace pants, but he enjoys seeing a football player having a good time. "He shows so much joy and fun," Ransom said. "He's playing at the highest level and shows he's having fun at the same time. He's my pick."