By Elise Brunelle, Vermont Maturity Contributor.
Vermont’s Orchestra Birthday Celebrations
How does an orchestra celebrate being 90 years old? In Vermont, it’s a matter of driving through snowdrifts, over mountains, and down county roads to play music just about everywhere. During the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-2025 season – it’s 90th – instrumentalists and chorus are making music in 43 different Vermont towns. Whether it’s a woodwind trio in a school gym, a string quartet in a museum, a choir in an opera house, or full symphony orchestra on a mountain slope, there’s something for everyone.
The VSO includes 54 contracted union musicians (with over 70 musicians for larger concerts), and four full-time and four-part time staff. An 80-voice chorus, two regional VSO Friends committees, and its 18-member Board of Directors comprise a volunteer base of over 115 people who support the orchestra’s mission to “foster and encourage the love of music throughout Vermont.”
Nine Decades Ago
In the fall of 1934, a young conductor named Alan Carter gathered volunteer musical forces of this rural state, aiming to fulfill a dream for a Vermont orchestra. After a period of separate north and south rehearsals, instrumentalists came together in January of 1936 to present the fledgling orchestra’s first public concert. With Carter as its first Music Director, this premiere concert featured musicians whose numbers included barbers, lawyers, mail carriers, doctors, and farmers.
Carter was succeeded by Ephraim Guigui, who was followed by Kate Tamarkin, Jaime Laredo, and now Andrew Crust. The Music Director position serves as the creative decisionmaker and primary conductor of the orchestra, whose musicians voted to join the American Federation of Musicians Local in 2018 making VSO the sole unionized musical ensemble in the state.
90 years and five Music Directors after Carter first envisioned a Vermont state orchestra, the VSO remains one of the oldest orchestras in the country, and one of only a handful supported by a state appropriation.
“It is my great honor to serve as Music Director of this storied institution in its 90th year, a great milestone that few arts organizations achieve,” says Andrew Crust, who joined VSO in 2023. “It is likewise a privilege to make music with the sensitive and committed artists of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. I have simply loved my time in the Green Mountain state, especially our tours which give me the chance to explore this gorgeous state with all its lakes, mountains, and covered bridges.”
Unforgettable Memories
Memorable events abound over the past nine decades. There were years of glitzy Waltz Nights and Radio Vermont Group auctions. The annual Summer Festival Tour kicked off in 1978, and Jukebox quartet concerts began in 2016. Aaron Copland conducted the orchestra in 1979, and the VSO Chorus was founded by Robert De Cormier in 1993. An unforgettable 2008 winter storm knocked power at the Flynn, leaving guest violinist Soovin Kim to treat the audience to solo Bach in the dark. During the first summer of the pandemic, 20 outdoor quartet and quintet concerts reached every corner of the state. We’ve commissioned and performed works by dozens of aspiring, young Vermont high school composers, alongside works of Nico Muhly, David Ludwig, Suad Bushnaq, Roberto Sierra, Ray Vega, Zoe Keating, and more.
Stellar performances have featured our own VSO musicians as soloists, plus pianists Andre Watts, Leon Fleisher, and Joseph Kalichstein, guitarist Sharon Isbin, banjoist Bela Fleck, violinists Midori and Bella Hristova, cellist Sharon Robinson, and clarinetist Anthony McGill. And, of course, Yo-Yo Ma in 2011.
In just the past 45 years – or as far back as VSO’s computerized history goes – an estimated 1,580 performances took place for well over 1 million attendees.
Season Wrap Up: Ending on a High Note
Spring 2025 wraps up VSO’s anniversary season, with everything from the all-powerful force of a Mahler symphony to a bit of rock and roll. There are concerts in an airplane hangar, a museum, in theatres, senior retirement communities, and the state capitol legislative chambers, exploring many performance venues available around the state.
- March 1 sees VSO’s return to BETA Technologies in South Burlington, with a chorus and instrument trio in concert accompanied by video projections designed by Champlain College Emergent Media students.
- March 20 and 21 feature the legendary Grace Potter and her band in their first ever performances with orchestra, at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland and The Flynn in Burlington.
- March 28, 29 and 30 celebrate Women’s History Month with string quartet performances in Burlington, Montpelier, Weston, and Weybridge of music by female composers.
- April 4-12 brings the Jukebox quartet to Bennington, Brattleboro, Burlington, Rutland and White River Junction with Heavy Metal Strings, and family-friendly Juicebox kids shows.
- Then on May 10, 2025 the orchestra’s season finale takes place at the Flynn in Burlington.
Andrew Crust shares his thoughts on wrapping up the season: “I have certainly taken advantage of the artistic caliber of the VSO in my programming, and the concert I’m most looking forward to is our final Flynn program featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 “Titan”. Titanic indeed, this composer’s first symphony calls for over 80 players on the stage and tests the limits of any orchestra’s physical and emotional stamina. There’s simply nothing like a Mahler symphony.
We’ve paired that work with the late Jocelyn Morlock’s evocative and powerful ‘My Name is Amanda Todd’ which honors the life of the so named Canadian teen whose tragically short life serves as an inspiration to young women suffering from abuse and mental illness, as well as ‘Fanfare’ by Vermont composer Alexandra du Bois.”
Special things are happening at the VSO – if you haven’t been in a while, now is the time to come back. Likewise, for friends and family who have never enjoyed a symphonic concert (especially students, who have access to $10 tickets), the VSO is creating an environment which is welcoming to everyone, no matter their background or musical knowledge.
All VSO concert information can be found at vso.org/events, and VSO education programs can be found at vso.org/education. Keep an eye out for our 2025 Summer Festival Tour announcement in the spring!
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