Troy Peters, conductor

Acclaimed for his innovative programming, conductor Troy Peters has been the subject of nationally broadcast profiles on CBS television and National Public Radio. Vermont Governor James Douglas recognized his contribution to the state’s cultural life by proclaiming April 17, 2005, as “Troy Peters Day” in Vermont. As Music Director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra since 1995, he has overseen a period of tremendous growth and received six ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. He is also the Music Director of the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra and the Conductor of the Middlebury College Orchestra.

The soloists with whom Peters has collaborated include such luminaries as Midori, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Soovin Kim, Phillip Ying, and Horacio Gutiérrez. He has also gained international attention for his orchestral collaborations with rock musician Trey Anastasio (formerly of the band Phish), including numerous live performances and two albums on Elektra Records. He has been a popular guest conductor with many groups, including the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Northwest Mahler Festival, the Vermont Mozart Festival, and the Opera Company of Middlebury. A graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and the University of Pennsylvania, his conducting teachers and mentors have included Marin Alsop, Harry Davidson, Raymond Harvey, David Hayes, Kenneth Kiesler, David Loebel, Gustav Meier, and Larry Rachleff

Peters is also busy as a composer, where his work ranges from orchestral and chamber music to a large body of songs and an opera for hand puppets. His honors include the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and grants from Meet the Composer and the Rockefeller Foundation. His music has been commissioned by many groups, including the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Saint Michael’s College, the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble, and Social Band. A versatile instrumentalist, Peters not only plays the viola, but has also performed on tenor banjo and electric guitar with symphony orchestras. Born in Scotland of American parents, he lives in Colchester with his wife and daughter.

A pre-concert discussion, “Musically Speaking,” moderated by VPR’s Walter Parker will be held on May 3 at 7 p.m. at the Flynn Center, free for members of the audience. The discussion will feature Daron Hagen and guest conductor Troy Peters, providing entertaining insight into the music, composers and musicians themselves. Keep reading!

Sharon Robinson, cellist

Winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, the Piatigorsky Memorial Award and a Grammy nominee, Sharon Robinson is recognized as one of America’s foremost champions of the cello. Whether as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, or member of the renowned Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, critics and audiences alike delight in her sophisticated blend of intellect and vibrant emotion. Guest appearances with orchestra include the symphonies of Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and San Francisco as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, London Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra, and the English, Scottish, and Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestras.

Ms. Robinson has performed recitals throughout Europe and in virtually every major city in the United States. Her many festival engagements include Spoleto, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Granada, Helsinki, Edinburgh and the Autumn Festival in Prague.

In addition to two solo CDs, Sharon Robinson has recorded extensively with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. With her husband, Jaime Laredo, she has also recorded the Zwilich Double Concerto and the Ned Rorem’s Double Concerto (both of which were composed for them).

A favorite of TV audiences, Ms. Robinson has appeared on the Tonight Show, Today Show, A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts, the Charlie Rose Show, and in a profile on CBS
Sunday Morning. Keep reading!

Verdi Overture to Nabucco

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Giuseppe Verdi’s first major operatic success appeared in the wake of the most difficult time in the composer’s life. In 1838 and 1839, Verdi and his young wife Margherita lost both of their infant children in quick succession (a sadly common circumstance at the time). Tragically, Margherita fell ill and died in the summer of 1840. Then, in September 1840, Verdi’s second opera, Un giorno di regno, was a complete disaster, closing after only one performance. Deeply depressed, the composer was understandably ready to give up on music altogether. But Bartolomeo Merelli, who ran the famed Milan opera house, La Scala, prevailed upon Verdi to write one more opera. The result was Nabucco, an instant commercial and critical triumph upon its premiere in 1842.

Nabucco retells the biblical story of the slavery and eventual exile of the Jews under the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. In spite of the dark story, the score is full of memorable melodies. In fact, one of Verdi’s biggest hits is the Act III chorus, “Va pensiero,” in which the Hebrew slaves sing wistfully of their lost homeland. Over the course of the 19th century, the tune came to be a popular anthem of the Italian Risorgimento, the political movement that pushed out foreign powers and unified the Italian peninsula as a single kingdom.

Like most of Verdi’s opera overtures, Nabucco is a potpourri of themes, most of which reappear in the opera. After a stately introduction in the brass and a more sinister transition, Verdi spins a gentle variation on “Va pensiero,” heard first in the oboe and clarinet playing in octaves. In the faster music that follows, the overture juxtaposes different themes associated with the Hebrew slaves and with their Babylonian captors, neatly foreshadowing the opera’s central conflict.

-- Troy Peters Keep reading!

Daron Hagen's "Masquerade"

The double concerto Masquerade takes as its starting place the conventions of Commedia dell'arte, a popular form of improvisational theater which began in Italy in the 15th century and remained popular into the 18th century. Costumes and masks identified life's universal characters, first described centuries earlier in Greek and Roman comedies, and the classic plots often revolved around lovers. One of the most important characters was Arlecchino, also known as Pedrolino, or the Harlequin.

The soloists take on the roles of musical lovers in the first movement (Burlesque). The story of their courtship is told by two harmonically and melodically elusive contrasting themes. A vecchio (elder) arrives on the scene. By seducing one of the innamorati, he forces them apart and the movement ends. The second movement (Elegy) is a lament for lost love. It tells the story of the lovers apart. As the movement progresses they grow older, and wiser with experience.

After many years, in the movement entitled The Last of Pedrolino, they are reunited one evening at the bedside of a mutual friend, the zanni Pedrolino, who, dying, wishes to see them both one last time. Inspired by Pedrolino, the two lovers reconnect, no longer as lovers but as old friends and soul mates. In a final Galoppade, they relive the open-hearted joy in singing of their childhoods before parting forever.

Composed over a two year period, the concerto was completed in February of 2007 and is dedicated to Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson who together introduced the piece with the Sacramento Philharmonic, conducted by Laura Jackson, on 16 February 2008 and with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Troy Peters, on May 3 2008.

-- Daron Hagen

*****

Daron Hagen (1961- )

Daron Hagen's orchestral compositions have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, American Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee, St. Louis, Dallas, Nashville, Houston, Denver, Knoxville, Florida, Oakland, Brooklyn and New Mexico Symphonies, among dozens of others. His five operas (Shining Brow, Bandanna, Vera of Las Vegas, Broken Pieces, and The Antient Concert) have received multiple performances internationally. The composer of over two hundred published art songs and cycles, his catalogue continues to grow as major orchestras, ensembles and soloists commission and record new works.

Current projects include Amelia, an opera for the Seattle Opera, a violin concerto for Michael Ludwig and the Buffalo and Virginia Symphonies, a fourth symphony for the Albany Symphony, and a string quartet for the Terezin Music Foundation.

Premieres scheduled for the 07-08 season include a double concerto for Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson (also being premiered with the Sacramento Symphony), a triple concerto for the Amelia Piano Trio and a consortium of pre-professional orchestras, and a fourth trio for the Finisterra Piano Trio.

Mr. Hagen made his debut as a stage director with the Buffalo Philharmonic's performances of his opera Shining Brow last November. He has released two CDs as a collaborative pianist with baritone Paul Kreider on the Arsis label. The recording of his opera Bandanna under his baton (Albany Troy 849/50) was chosen by Fanfare Magazine as one of the ten notable releases of 2006 and chosen as an "ArkivMusic Recommendation.”

President of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation and a Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo, Mr. Hagen is a graduate of the Juilliard School and of the Curtis Institute of Music. He has received the Kennedy Center Friedheim, the Bearns, Barlow, and ASCAP-Nissim Prizes, two Rockefeller Bellagio Residencies, the Camargo Residency, multiple residencies at VCCA and MacDowell, as well as scholarships and development grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and Opera America. His music is published by Carl Fischer and EC Schirmer. Recordings are available on Albany, Arsis, Sierra, CRI, and other labels.

Mr. Hagen maintains a vigorous private teaching schedule and gives numerous master classes and residencies at colleges and music festivals. He is also a frequent grants panelist and has served twice as Composer in Residence for the Princeton University Atelier; as Franz Lehar Composer in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh; as Artist in Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Sigma-Chi-William P. Huffman Composer in Residence at Miami University; Artist in Residence at Baylor University; on the musical studies faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music; nine years on the composition faculty of Bard College; as a Visiting Professor at the City College of New York; and as a Lecturer in Music at New York University.

He has lived in New York City since 1984.

A pre-concert discussion, “Musically Speaking,” moderated by VPR’s Walter Parker will be held on May 3 at 7 p.m. at the Flynn Center, free for members of the audience. The discussion will feature Daron Hagen and guest conductor Troy Peters, providing entertaining insight into the music, composers and musicians themselves. Keep reading!

Shostakovich Symphony No. 5

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg and died in Moscow. Educated entirely in Russia, he had early success both as a pianist and as a composer. His first three symphonies were received well, as was an opera (The Nose) and numerous other works. In 1930, he began work on Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, and by 1936 it had received nearly two hundred performances in Moscow and Leningrad and had been heard in London, Zurich, Stockholm, Copenhagen and New York. In January of 1936, however, Joseph Stalin attended a performance in Moscow, and two days later Pravda published a startling article under the headline “Muddle Instead of Music” denouncing the opera as “fidgety, screaming, neurotic, coarse, primitive and vulgar.” The warning was clear: such “formalism” – a Soviet term for any art that too closely resembled Western modernism – would no longer be tolerated. Shostakovich completed but then withdrew his Fourth Symphony, and retreated into fearful silence for nearly two years. At the same time, friends and supportive colleagues were forced to make fictional confessions disappearing into prisons, even being killed. With the net closing around him, Shostakovich had to be incredibly careful with his next public work.

The Fifth Symphony was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic on November 21, 1937. Shostakovich clearly used it as a public statement that he would be adhering more closely to the concept of “socialist realism,” defined by Party theorist Nikolai Bukharin as stories of “tragedies and conflicts, vacillations, defeats, the struggle of conflicting tendencies,” to be concluded as a matter of course with triumphs of resolution to the accepted supremacy of the state. The symphony’s traditionally clear-cut four-movement symphonic form and its tonal journey from a dark d minor to a triumphant (if somewhat menacing) D Major finale made it all but impossible to describe as “muddle.” The unqualified success of the Fifth Symphony rescued Shostakovich’s reputation, at least for the time being.

It would clearly be a mistake, however, to categorize the Fifth Symphony definitively as a work of acquiescence to official demands. For decades, Western music critics for the most part dismissed Shostakovich as a Communist conformist, too weak-willed to act against the Soviet authorities. The publication in 1979 of Solomon Volkov’s controversial book Testimony: the Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov called all such assumptions into question. While the authenticity of every word of the book has never been proven, the general sentiment has become accepted: that Shostakovich was miserable, fearful of speaking out but harboring intense resentment for the ruling regime. It has become clear that he was a master of Soviet doublespeak, using often using overemphasis and unnecessary repetition in his correspondence as code that he intended to convey the opposite of what his words literally meant. From Testimony: “I think that it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Gudonov. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing.’ And you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’”

Through hard, even life-threatening lessons, Shostakovich learned to walk a kind of tightrope of musical irony. In his excellent book about 20th century music, The Rest is Noise, music critic Alex Ross wrote: “To talk about musical irony, we first have to agree on what the music appears to be saying, and then we have to agree about what the music is really saying. This is invariably difficult to do. We can, however, learn to be wary of any interpretation that displays too much certitude about what the music is ‘really saying’ and stay alert to multiple levels of meaning. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony becomes a rich experience when heard this way.”

--Gabriel Langfur Keep reading!

Episode 1: T.L. Read

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Top Composer

I’ve been obsessed with "Top Chef" on the Bravo network for a while, but the thing is, since I watch so little TV at home, I mostly get to see it only when I’m in hotels. As I am on one of my Vermont Symphony residency weeks, I am in the Jackson Gore resort hotel at Okemo Mountain, and as it turns out, “Top Chef” is on all night. Good times.

It’s not your average “reality” show. The premise is that a group of sixteen emerging chefs is whittled down to one over the course of a season and the winner gets fame and riches (and a very nice set of knives). The chefs face various challenges against each other and are judged by four professionals from the field (regulars and famous guests). What makes the show different than say, MTV’s “Real World,” or more currently “American Idol,” is that all of the contestants (and judges) on “Top Chef” are experts. And in watching the show I realized how much similarity there is between chefs and composers.

Yeah, yeah, putting together ingredients to make a whole, but what was interesting to me was the sensitivity they had to the different flavors, styles, and textures, much like composers are particularly sensitive to pitch, rhythm, styles, and well, textures… And then some of the chefs have been big on “molecular” cooking. Is that like “spectral” music? I haven’t learned much about it, but it seems obvious that there would be schools of cooking as much as there are schools of composing. And it’s not just like a “French” style or type of cuisine, but actual developing approaches to the subject of cooking that evolve—sometimes growing into different ideas, and sometimes dying away. Perhaps I can create my own schools of cooking based on major trends in 20th century music:

Minimalism: Chefs prepare the same dish every night but change one seasoning per meal. The food must be very palatable and have very few ingredients.

Serialism: Chefs can’t prepare the same dish until they have cycled through all other available dishes first. Early cooks used to just change the entrée every night, but now chefs will rotate the appetizer, dessert, drinks, and even the silverware.

Expressionism: Waiters must scream about the futility and absurdity of life as they bring the food. Interpretive dance a must.

Neo-Classicism: Features only food cooked and preserved for long periods of time. The cutlery is new, however.

Experimentalism: Chefs will try to cook any object to try to make it edible. Particularly requested was a piece for cooked amplified cactus. The famous chef Jean Cage once prepared and served a dish with nothing on the plate.

The New Complexity: That the food will be so full of different flavors will make it too difficult to taste on a first setting. That it’s too difficult to prepare makes this culinary movement ultimately theoretical.

Impressionism: Flavors are vague and ambiguous…food is made light and fluffy, like clouds, really…not sure what that was I just ate, but it tastes like chicken…or did it?

So those are some examples we can pursue. As a side note, I brought this idea before my Second Viennese School at Curtis and we decided that for a final class we’ll make a large serialized pizza. We’ll get twelve different toppings and put each one on a slice, not repeating any topping until all eleven others are adorned on the pie. Then we decided not to tell anyone about this plan because it was too dorky for public consumption.


It’s now a few days later and I’m finishing up this blog addition at the Green Mountain Coffee factory store and café in Waterbury, VT. Good coffee and free wireless? I think I’ll order a cot.

So I did notice one competition between the chefs on the program which was to go shopping and prepare dishes that used no more than five ingredients. At first I wasn’t sure how the judges could tell if the contestants violated the rules, but then I realized that these are experts—they have the kind of palette that can know exactly what is at work in what they are eating, much as a well-trained musician with good ears can hear what is happening on the deepest levels of the music and how it is put together, down to scales, motives, and notes. And as we may enjoy a good meal as much as the next person, does anyone doubt that the more time we spend knowing about food and preparing it that we taste more and (hopefully) enjoy it more profoundly? The same must be true with music.

So take that cooking, I mean, music class you’ve been putting off but meaning to take! Or just listen to Beethoven like you would eat an expertly prepared meal, with the care and a slowness that we seem to lose in our daily concerns. Keep reading!

When it rains, it pours...and sometimes freezes

Two VSO musicians share their concert emergencies NOT related to the power going out!

I left my car at the Middlebury Inn Saturday morning and joined Hilary in her car to go to the orchestra meeting. Due to the ice on the road we were half an hour late, but had a good meeting and rehearsal that afternoon. When the lights went off before the concert we brought our clothes upstairs, in order not to have to look for them later in total darkness, and joined Soovin on stage, where he entertained the confused audience with his gorgeous Bach Chaconne performance, in the dark.

Our early drive home was uneventful, but when I returned to my car it was draped in inch-thick ice. I couldn't get my hand in the door handle, let alone open any of the doors. Poor Hilary had to bring me all the way home. Thanks Hill!

--Dieuwke Davydov

Saturday Burlington was harder to walk around than I've seen it in 35 years - streams of water over ice and various mixtures of slush, snow and ice. Of course it would have to be the one time in my career I'd forgotten a white shirt. So I'm navigating up to Macy's in a panic at 7:30, by 7:47 standing under an emergency light in the catacombs trying to calm myself as I struggled to remove the endless number of pins from the shirt, especially the two whose heads were hidden so ingeniously I considered ripping the shirt to get them out.

Finally I made it upstairs at 7:55 to catch the last 1/3 of the Chaconne - from panic to mesmerized in 30 seconds.

--David Gusakov
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David Ludwig shows his dark side

I arrived at approximately 7:05 PM to see our "Town Meeting" at which the VSO's 2008/2009 season, Music of Our Time, would be unveiled by New Music Advisor David Ludwig, Music Director Jaime Laredo and Executive Director Alan Jordan. One moment Jaime is talking about the October program, the next moment, the lights are out. David Ludwig doesn't miss a beat joking, "We didn't want to leave you in the dark" [about our forthcoming season]. David has promised to become a prolific VSO blogger, with a series of posts detailing his work composing the double concerto to be premiered next season, his work in Vermont schools under the auspices of our SymphonyKids educational outreach program, as well as whatever wacky events happen in between...such as a power outage during a pre-concert talk at the Flynn on Saturday. David reflects...

I am sitting in a little inn in the middle of Vermont. It’s one of these wonderful places laid out like a chalet where they bring you cider and cookies while you sit by the fire and blog about being a composer…

But rather than talk about myself, which I will surely do in upcoming installments here, I thought I would write about my experiences with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra from the past couple of days. These times have been unique.

Last night was supposed to be a sold out concert for the VSO in Burlington. The program at the Flynn center was my oboe and string orchestra piece called Radiance, the Sibelius violin concerto played by my old friend Soovin Kim, and Schumann’s 3rd Symphony (the "Rhenish") for the second half. It looked to be a good program and I was so looking forward to having my piece played. For most composers, having an orchestra play your music is an event—I hope that I never get too used to so many people up there all pouring their hearts into playing my music. It’s an awesome feeling.

Just before concert time, we held a press conference on stage for interested regular audience members (the “we” was myself, as moderator and Composer-in-Residence and New Music Advisor for the symphony, Music Director Jaime Laredo, and Executive Director Alan Jordan.) What we announced was the new season for the orchestra’s 75th anniversary (which will be celebrated over two years). The reason I was involved in this specifically was because there is a vision behind the programming for next season that makes it very special—the season is only to feature music written since the inception of the orchestra. We were pretty strict about that, too. As we were going through possibilities to go on Masterworks concerts, lots of things were struck down because they were written just a few years before 1935.

I think this season is a big deal, and I think it’s going to get national attention for the orchestra. And it’s a funny thing, because people not in the know would wonder why there would be any particular excitement or trepidation about it. Isn’t it strange that classical music institutions might need courage and foresight to program music written during the lifetimes of the majority of the population? What other art is like this, where there is such a perceived disconnect between the music of our time and the audiences of our time?

Really, that disconnect is only a matter of perception, and when we announced dances from “West Side Story,” and music from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet,” there were collective affirmations from the audiences—a field of “mm’s” in the rows of seats. Like so many things in life, once you realize that the territory is familiar after all, it’s a lot less scary. The orchestra is doing a number of absolutely contemporary pieces, too, including a double concerto I’ll be writing for Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson. In the context of all of these wonderful 20th century works, the new pieces take on an interesting place in the programming. Everything becomes fresh and exciting to hear; works like Barber’s Capricorn Concerto become the standard rep and the pieces written in the 21st century become opportunities to hear music that no one has ever heard before. The audience clearly saw it that way too, and they offered assurance and enthusiasm. We can get so worried about what people will think when we try something new, and for sure the Vermont Symphony is showing a certain kind of bravery in this, given what the classical music world has become. But maybe we can give our audiences some credit for having open minds and ears. This season will bring newness to Beethoven in the next season, too.

In Beethoven’s time, the scene was vastly different, and not just because there was no heat in the hall (that wouldn’t fly in Burlington). Concerts in those days would be all new music, with one older piece (maybe forty years old?) put on as a curiosity or something different. How much this has reversed since then! Is the audience dying out? Is this generation of older listeners going to eventually disappear and we’ll be left with nothing? Is classical music—how I don’t love that term “classical”—is classical music dying, too? We know that music education has suffered, and we all know that improving this is the silver bullet to improve the status of the art, but there is an audience now, and it is resolute and devoted. Many have written about the sky falling in the next fifty years, but I am positive about it and excited for what is to come. I think the devotion of this audience and the vision of orchestras like this one will bring in an ever-stronger time of love and appreciation for our music, and ever more music of our time. I believe that contemporary music will bridge this generation of listeners to the next, and I’ll explore how in upcoming writing here.

As for the concert, well…it was cancelled. An ice storm of the kind that only Vermonters (and a select few others) know put the power out all over town and at the Flynn. But before it was cancelled Soovin went out in front of the audience to play the Bach Chaconne. He is from Plattsburgh, and a bunch of his admirers (there are many!) drove the long way around Lake Champlain specially to hear him. In the dark, the audience kept pouring in, directed by the flashlights of volunteers. And the orchestra had taken the stage too, everyone seated with their instruments in hand, ready to take up playing if the lights should come back on. So we all sat or stood there in silence and in the near blackness, listening diligently to Soovin’s heroic fiddling. No one stirred to take off their coat or find their phone. No one talked to their neighbors or unwrapped those (@#$%ing) mints in the extra-loud wrappers. Just silence while Soovin played. And at the end there were tears and the whole audience of a thousand plus leapt to its feet, unable to see the soloist at all, but all ears, nonetheless. It was an incredibly moving experience—a musician giving to the audience an unexpected gift and the audience giving back with their most earnest applause.

Is it any wonder that I’m hopeful about the future of music?
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Muscle Memory: 1, Acts of God: 0

You can tell when people really love what they do. The butcher who suggests a great steak rub that would make you swear off A1 forever. The tow truck driver who cruises town on snowy nights, pulling cars out of snow banks and ditches without giving thought to pay. The young virtuoso violinist that takes the stage in semi-darkness to assuage a sold-out Flynn Center audience. Soovin Kim proved his love for what he does this past Saturday night when he serenaded an audience with Bach's Chaconne as the VSO musicians sat behind him, veiled in shadows. On Monday morning, I expected to see Sunday newspaper clippings detailing our dilemma. I was awfully surprised to learn that the Free Press didn't provide any coverage of the story, despite there being an FP photographer at the Flynn. Instead, we had received three messages from patrons who had come to enjoy the music on Saturday, exalting Soovin for allowing them just that. Below are bits of three messages, passed from us to you.

"Thank you so much for that magical moment Saturday night. Faced with no power and a crowd of people, you all handled that situation with great grace. And gave us a wonderful gift of Soovin Kim. Listening to him in the dark give us that impromptu solo was a night I won't soon forget. Whatever else you can do to replace that evening will only be extra." -- Elise Whittemore-Hill

"You made friends for life Saturday night...people will never forget it!" -- Chris Hadsel

"Last night (Saturday) was one of the most memorable musical experiences I can remember. As I drove through the slushy streets, half flooded from water pouring down the Burlington hill, I wondered how many folks would venture out to hear Soovin Kim and the VSO. As I came down Main Street, I first noticed that the traffic lights at the corner of Church and Main weren't working, and then... the Flynn Marquee was dark!! Oh, no! But I could see people standing out front, so I parked and slogged my way up the half-darkened streets and into the lobby of the Flynn. It was eerie with the emergency lights providing the only illumination. But people were waiting patiently, hoping for that miracle which often happens in these storms: the lights coming back on! Soon the ushers were saying to just go in and take a seat. Never mind about the tickets or what seat you were supposed to have. We moved into the semi-darkened auditorium and found a seat. On stage were the shadowy figures of orchestra members, and in front of them was the lone figure of Soovin Kim, holding his violin. He tried to shout a message to the audience, but it was too noisy in there for him to be heard. So he put his violin under his chin, and started playing that wonderful Bach Partita in D Minor (my favorite unaccompanied Bach violin piece!). The audience who were seated quieted down, and soon even the people coming in were silently finding seats, too (I heard that Troy was outside quieting people down before they entered). And so we sat in that surreal setting - the storm raging outside, the emergency lights faintly illuminating the theatre, the glimpse of Soovin's bow hand moving as his bow flew across the strings - and the sound of Bach reaching out to a faithful and attentive audience. When at last we heard the final chords, we stood up, clapping and cheering. Many of us had tears in our eyes as someone shone a flashlight on Soovin as he accepted the bouquet of roses. I caught a glimpse of him wiping a tear from his face afterwards as he listened to the roar of the audience. Even with the announcement that the concert had to be canceled - a not-unexpected decision by that time - the experience clearly had affected the audience.

"What a tribute to the power of music: the orchestra and staff members who were gamely trying to make the show go on; the audience that was determined to brave the elements to hear their symphony; the soloist playing from his heart in the dark!

"Thanks to all of you. It was a most memorable evening!" -- Anne Brown
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