Get Ready to Bid!

We hope you will listen to one of Radio Vermont Group's eight stations around the state on April 30, 2015, so that you don't miss the 17th annual radio auction to benefit the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.

Auction items will be published in local newspapers statewide and on our website.  Past items included ski passes, travel, dinners, wine and spirits, and, of course, VSO concert tickets.  This year's items are starting to come in and, among them is a 2-night stay in Iceland!

The radio auction provides $15,000-$20,000 in support to the Vermont Symphony Orchestra each year, which is why your participation is so important and appreciated.

For the most up to date details, please visit our website.  And, don't forget to tune in on April 30th!

Radio auction volunteer, Jim Leyton, takes bids

Keep reading!

From the Wings; by Eleanor Long

From the Wings 

by Eleanor Long

If someone were playing a word association game with you (and you were a classical music enthusiast, which of course you are if you’re reading this!) and that someone said “Symphony No. 5,” what are the chances you would say “Beethoven”?  “Symphony No. 9”:  same answer?  Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mahler, Schubert, and Bruckner MIGHT have hurt feelings, though, not to mention Mendelssohn and Vaughan Williams…  But while we’re playing this game, let’s go ahead and mention them!  

I’m cribbing the contents of this article from an exchange I saw on Facebook a couple months ago.  I won’t use the real names involved, in case anyone is sensitive about that stuff, but “a guy” posted the following puzzle/challenge:

If you had to pick nine symphonies by different composers to include as part of a proverbial desert island survival kit, which would they be? (Nine because nine has been kind of a magical number for symphonists ever since Beethoven stopped there.)  Here are the rules:

You can choose only one symphony per composer. 

You must choose numbered symphonies (no Symphonie fantastique, in other words). 

You cannot choose two symphonies of the same number by different composers. 

Here are what sixteen FB friends replied:

1) Brahms

2) Sibelius

3) Mahler

4) Nielsen

5) Prokofiev

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Shostakovich

8) Bruckner

9) Schubert

1) Elgar

2) Rachmaninov

3) Brahms

4) Nielsen

5) Sibelius

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Bruckner

8) Mahler

9) Schubert

1)Fisher Tull

2) Mahler

3) Copland

4) Nielsen

5) Shostakovich

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Beethoven

8) Bruckner

9) Schubert

1)  Howard Hanson

2) Mahler

3) Brahms

4) Nielsen (love the lyricism)

5) Mendelssohn

6) Beethoven (ditto)

7) Vaughan Williams

8) Bruckner

9) Shostakovich

1) Mahler

2) Brahms

3) Copland

4) Nielsen

5) Prokofiev

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Shostakovich

8) Bruckner

9) Beethoven

1) Kalinnikov

2) Sibelius

3) Prokofiev

4) Nielsen

5) Mahler

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Bruckner

8) Shostakovich

9) Beethoven

1) Brahms

2) Mahler

3) Copland

4) Ives

5) Sibelius

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Shostakovich

8) Dvorak

9) Beethoven

1) Barber (wonderful, compact piece)

2) Sibelius (the last movement is the most uplifting thing I’ve ever heard)

3) Copland

4) Nielsen

5) Prokofiev

6) Dvorak

7) Beethoven (even though no trombones)

8) Schubert

9) Bruckner (awesome scherzo)

1) Elgar

2) Brahms

3) Saint-Saëns

4) Vaughan Williams

5) Mahler

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Bruckner

8) Dvorak

9) Schubert

1) Mahler

2) Brahms

3) Saint-Saëns

4) Shostakovich

5) Beethoven

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Sibelius

8) Dvorak

9) Schubert

1) Elgar

2) Sibelius

3) Copland

4) Shostakovich

5) Beethoven

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Vaughan Williams

8) Dvorak

9) Mahler

1) Sibelius (not the best first, just my favorite)

2) Rachmaninov

3) Beethoven (the best)

4) Nielsen

5) Shostakovich

6) Mahler (larger than life)

7) Bruckner

8) Schubert

9) Everybody!!!!

1) Bruckner

2) Elgar

3) Beethoven

4) Franz Schmidt

5) Vaughan Williams

6) Mahler

7) Sibelius

8) Shostakovich

9) Schubert

1) Sibelius

2) Brahms

3) Mahler

4) Beethoven

5) Prokofiev

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Shostakovich

8) Dvorak

9) Schubert

1) Brahms

2) Sibelius

3) Mahler

4) Vaughan Williams

5) Prokofiev

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Shostakovich

8) Bruckner

9) Beethoven

1) Corigliano

2) Sibelius (I’m a sucker for the mood changes)

3) Mahler (the biggest, baddest symphony in the standard repertoire!)

4) Shostakovich (quirky in all the right ways)

5) Prokofiev (one hell of a fun ride)

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Bruckner

8) Haydn (thrilled to find a spot for the guy who basically invented symphonies)

9) Beethoven (have to have something triumphant and life-affirming to play on my island!)

Okay, without looking back, can you guess “winners” for each number in this opinion poll?  Here they are:

1) Brahms

2) Sibelius

3) Copland

4) Nielsen

5) Prokofiev

6) Tchaikovsky

7) Shostakovich

8) tie between Dvorak and Bruckner

9) Schubert

Roll over, Beethoven!  So sorry, Ludwig—you got a lot of votes, though.  The runaway winner was Tchaikovsky’s Sixth, with 12 votes out of 16.  And…good news!  We are playing it next season!  Along with three other high-ranking contestants:  Beethoven’s Fifth, Dvorak’s Eighth, and Brahms’ First. 

Keep reading!

VSO's New Music Advisor David Ludwig Scores Major Motion Picture

Classical music composer David Ludwig has written the original score to director Michael Almereyda's new feature film Cymbeline, an explosive modern-day drama based on Shakespeare's play by the same name. Academy Award nominees Ethan Hawke (Best Supporting Actor, Training Day, 2001) and Ed Harris (Best Actor, Pollock, 2000) lead a powerhouse cast including Milla Jovovich, John Leguizamo, Penn Badgley, Dakota Johnson and Anton Yelchin, with Bill Pullman and Delroy Lindo in a gritty story of a take-no-prisoners war between dirty cops and an outlaw biker gang. Oscar-winning Anthony Katagas (12 Years a Slave, Killing Them Softly) is producing the film for Keep Your Head Productions alongside Michael Benaroya (Margin Call, Lawless, The Words) for Benaroya Pictures. Although Ludwig has composed for documentaries and animated shorts, Cymbeline marks the feature-length film-scoring debut for the composer.This project represented a musical transition from concert stage to big screen for Ludwig, who is on the composition faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and has written for numerous major orchestras and some of the top performers in classical music today. 

Film director Michael Almereyda commented: "Having listened to a number of his orchestral pieces, I knew David could write music with complexity, depth and emotional power. The question was, could he harness these qualities in a film score, following the fixed contours of given scenes? Could he write dramatic music that rides the wave of the film's dialogue and action? His score for Cymbeline demonstrates that he can do exactly that, very capably, often brilliantly."

 "Writing for film requires a very different sense of timing and pacing, great flexibility, a handle on technology, and strong communication skills," said Ludwig. "But it is equally rewarding in so many ways. There's nothing quite like seeing the finished picture with your music framing the richness of each scene."
Cymbeline was a recent feature at the Venice Film Festival in September 2014 and was nominated for the Venice Horizons Award. This is Almereyda's second modern-day adaption of Shakespeare. In 2000, he directed the highly acclaimed Hamlet, with Ethan Hawke in the title role.

Preserving the original language and plot lines of Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," the film is a fresh take on a universal story of love, betrayal and revenge. Cymbeline the movie opens on March 13, 2015 in theaters and on Video On Demand.

David Ludwig (b. 1972) is "a composer with something urgent to say" (Philadelphia Inquirer). An award winning and highly sought after composer, Ludwig's recent concert commissions include those from Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Ravinia Music Festival, among many others. His latest recording Two x Four on Cedille Records was released in April 2014 to great acclaim, and the CD was nominated for a Grammy Award in multiple categories. In 2013 his choral work, The New Colossus, was selected to open the private prayer service for President Obama and his cabinet at his second Inauguration. NPR Music named Ludwig as one of the "Top 100 Composers Under Forty in the World." More information at davidludwigmusic.com.

Keep reading!

How the music of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra has Moved Me

How the music of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra has Moved Me

By Karen Paquin 

(Development Director, VSO)

The 100-mile move from Montreal across an international border to South Burlington is not biggest way that the Vermont Symphony Orchestra moved me.  Since I joined the VSO team just over six months ago, the Orchestra’s music that has moved me in very different, entirely wonderful, and completely unexpected ways.

In July, just before I began working, my family and I attended the Summer Music Festival Tour concert at Shelburne Farms.  What fun it was to dance to the big band sound of Benny Goodman and Glen Miller with my daughter!

In the fall, I was swept up in the picturesque composition, Before the Snow, written by Vermont native Beth Wiemann, and premiered during our Made in Vermont tour.  I closed my eyes as the music played and could actually envision an artist painting the stormy scene depicted in her piece.  It was a very cool experience.  I almost stepped into the painting myself to walk among the blowing, swirling leaves.

December brought Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.  I had never heard this piece before, but I knew the story behind it and, once I heard the music, I could see how it had stirred up so much controversy.  Hearing it live was amazing, but listening to it in the VSO jeep with Eleanor while driving back from our Brass Quintet and Counterpoint concert in Warren was truly surreal.  The road seemed to twist and turn to the music, forcing me to keep pace with it, to slow down.  As we merged onto the interstate, it was like we had to reach this point in our journey to stay in touch with the music as it rolled out of the stereo increasing its pace.

I was unsure that I would ever hear anything as impressive at Stravinsky.  But, then January arrived and with it, Elena Urioste playing Elgar’s Violin Concerto.  My eyes watered; I was so moved by her abilities… and I wasn’t alone.  Several people admitted to being moved to tears by the exquisite talents of this young woman.

This journey is just beginning and I am sure it will continue to move me through the incredible music that this orchestra of very talented musicians plays at every turn.

Keep reading!