Apollo’s Fire, a Knight Arts grantee, is well known for both its classical, and its funky, programming, giving the adjective “hip” to what most people might think of as stodgy, old, classical music.

This becomes apparent in this current season and an upcoming program. It would be enough for most orchestras that this is Johann Sebastian Bach’s 300th birthday year. (Orchestras have had performances for less momentous occasions.) Apollo’s Fire is joining in that idea with a year-long celebration of the musical giant’s talent.

But it’s going a big step forward by focusing on Bach as a family man. Most people might not see the composer as quite real. Legend, yes, and an icon of classical music. But as Jeannette Sorrell, founder and artistic director of Apollo’s Fire, noted, Bach was so much more.

Bach wrote hundreds of cantatas, as well as extensive organ works and orchestral pieces. Prodigious as a musician – with a huge performance schedule and work commitment – Bach also managed to produce a large family. The composer apparently had seven children with his first wife and 13 with the second.

It is one of them that caught the interest of Sorrell and will set the tempo for the performance it is calling “Family Frolic: a Multi-Generational Music Party.”

As Sorrell tells it: “We know from Bach family documents that ‘Lieschen’ was the nickname of one his daughters. And she was the only of his daughters who got married. Bach indicated ‘Lieschen’ next to the soprano line of the ‘Coffee Cantata.’ I’ve never seen any musicologists take note of this connection,” Sorrell continued, “but it seems clear to me that the role of ‘Lieschen’ was meant for his daughter. In the cantata, Lieschen keeps pestering her father to find her a husband. With an enormous church job and huge performing and composing responsibilities, Bach apparently didn’t have time to find husbands for most of his daughters. But he found one for Lieschen, because she wouldn’t give up. So I think the ‘Coffee Cantata’ gives us a charming window into one of the important family dramas in the Bach household.”

Now that’s inventive.

In this production, Apollo’s Fire uses some of its Young Artists, as Sorrell calls them, to bring the “Coffee Cantata” to life. As she noted, she wanted “to give some of our Young Artists a chance to shine in a more ‘theatrical’ vein.”

Sorrell, who designed the program, has invited soprano Madeline Apple Healey to play/sing the role of Lieschen. Apollo’s Fire regular guest artist, baritone Jeffrey Strauss, will return to the stage as Lieschen’s embattled Papa. Corey Shotwell, tenor, plays the overworked owner of the Leipzig coffeehouse where this drama plays out.

Madeline Apple Healey, soprano. Photo from www.thirteenthchamberchoir.com

It all sounds like amazing fun and good music.

Joining this work will be Bach’s “Harpsichord Sonata in D minor” and a flute quartet by Bach’s son, Johann Christian. Following the performance there will be a coffee klatch so that audience members can mingle with the performers over caffeine. Nice touch.

A pre-concert talk will be given by flutist Kathie Stewart one hour prior to each event.

Apollo’s Fire will present “Family Frolic” in the Akron area at a concert at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 23rd in the First United Methodist Church, 263 E. Mill St., Akron; 216-320-0012; www.apollosfire.org. Tickets are $21-$68.