By Elise Brunelle.
2025 has been a busy summer for your Vermont Symphony Orchestra! The annual statewide Summer Festival Tour wrapped up after six performances in July, followed by Oklahoma! in Concert at the von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, and finally a return to the stage with Grace Potter at her Grand Point North Festival in Burlington.
The orchestra’s 91st season moves indoors as cooler temperatures prevail, with its first concert East Meets West at the Flynn in Burlington on September 26, and at the Paramount in Rutland on September 27.
Joining the VSO is one of the world’s leading tabla virtuosos, Grammy Award-winning musician Sandeep Das, a 21-year member of the Silk Road Ensemble and collaborator with Paquito D’Rivera, Bobby McFerrin, and Yo-Yo Ma. Das partners with sitarist Rajib Karmakar to start the concert with the first movement of pioneering composer Ravi Shankar’s Symphony. Das follows with Sri Lankan/Canadian composer Dinuk Wijeratne’s brilliant Tabla Concerto, a three movement exploration of baroque, electronica, folk, and romantic styles.
The second half completes its East/West connection with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a hugely popular, sweeping work masterfully orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. The piece gives a distinct musical voice to visual art and shows the full colors and virtuosity of the orchestra.
VSO returns to The Flynn in Burlington with Pastoral Symphony on Saturday, October 25, with the natural world underscoring this late autumn concert with birdsong, thunder, moonlight, and mushrooms as influence for a breadth of compositions. William Grant Still’s Wood Notes is inspired by the rich nature of the American South, and Chelsea Komschlies’ piece Mycelialore makes musical connections between fungal and neural networks in a piece commissioned by the League of American Orchestras.
The second half presents Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale”, a bucolic hymn to the countryside and nature. From stillness to dancing, and bird calls to storms, Beethoven’s ability to incorporate rural life in musical form is exemplified in the four movements of this work.
Music Director Andrew Crust conducts the September and October concerts. Tickets are $25 – $62 (plus tax and fees), with student and music teacher discounts available, at www.vso.org/events or by calling the Flynn box office (802-863-5966) and The Paramount Theatre box office (802-775-0903).
VSO’s eclectic Jukebox quartet travels to St. Johnsbury, Burlington, Rutland, and Waterbury between October 15 and 19 in a concert series hosted and curated by Matt LaRocca.
Throughout history, composers have turned to music in the face of hardship—to find light in darkness, to hold fast to truth, to rise up, and to offer comfort, courage, and strength. In this fall Jukebox series, VSO’s string quartet looks to those composers who have created music for hope, resistance, and change—music composed in prison camps, music that calls out injustice, music that shouts dissent, music that is charged with the need to speak out and be heard.
The Jukebox concert on October 15 at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum is free (tickets are limited; pre-registration required); tickets for the concerts on October 16 at the Burlington Beer Company, October 17 at the Paramount in Rutland, and October 19 at Zenbarn in Waterbury are $15 – $35 (plus tax and fees), available at www.vso.org/events.
In education, VSO’s September guest musicians Sandeep Das (tabla) and Rajib Karmakar (sitar) host a world music workshop with students at Vermont State University Castleton, and Das will conduct a drumming workshop in Burlington in partnership with artists from Clemmons Family Farm.
In November, VSO musicians travel to St. Albans’ Bellows Free Academy and Montpelier’s U-32 school music programs with one-on-one lessons for students, and to perform side-by-side concerts as part of the Made in Vermont concert tour featuring storytellers from The Moth Radio Hour.
Vermont Youth Orchestra Association (VYOA) musicians are welcomed to VSO concerts at the Flynn as part of experiential learning for senior-level musicians, and VYOA small ensembles perform in the lobby before concerts. In 2025-26, five VYOA violinists and cellists will perform onstage with the VSO in Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, and Bizet’s Carmen Suites No. 1 and 2.
The Musicians in Schools program is VSO’s most far-reaching program, with over 3,600 kids participating last year. String, brass, and woodwind instrument trios bring live musical performance for K-6 students with a wide sampling of repertoire, audience participation, a storyteller who ties the music to STEM principles, and a good dose of zany humor.
Stay tuned at vso.org/education and sign up for VSO’s biweekly newsletter by emailing hello@vso.org to learn more about fall adult education opportunities!
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