Farmers' Night: a FREE concert on January 25

World-renowned conductor Andrew Massey leads the VSO in a Farmers' Night program that includes music of Gluck, Fauré, Bach, and Wagner. VSO English horn Ann Greenawalt and principal trumpet Mark Emery are featured in Copland’s popular Quiet City, and there is a part for the audience in Purcell’s clever “Fantasia upon One Note.” This delightful concert is part of the Vermont State House Farmers' Night series. These free concerts are presented in the Legislative Chambers. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the seats are offered on a first-come, first-served basis, so arrive early. Keep reading for the program and some biographical notes.

David M. Wilson Memorial Farmers' Night Concert
Wednesday, January 25
Doors at 6:30 p.m.
Concert at 7:30 p.m.
Free and open to the public

Andrew Massey, conductor
Ann Greenawalt, English horn
Mark Emery, trumpet

GLUCK Overture to Orpheus
FAURE Nocturne from Shylock, Op. 57
COPLAND Quiet City
J.S. BACH Air on the G String
PURCELL Fantasia upon One Note
WAGNER Siegfried Idyll

Andrew Massey lives in Montgomery Center, VT, although his musical activities take him far and wide. Last summer he was conducting the Indonesian National Symphony Orchestra in Jakarta, also visiting Bali and Singapore. He recently conducted the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong on the first tour by a Chinese Orchestra to Italy, and last year directed a concert of new Icelandic music in Reykjavik; a concert at which every composer featured was both alive and present.

Andrew grew up in England, studying at Oxford University, composing and conducting, until he moved to the USA in 1978 to become Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. Since then he has been Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and New Orleans Symphony, Resident Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony, and Music Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Fresno Philharmonic, Toledo Symphony, Oregon Mozart Players, Racine Symphony, and the Michigan Chamber Orchestra. He has guest conducted widely, and appeared with soloists such as Rostropovich, Ella Fitzgerald, Viktoria Mullova, Gil Shaham, Claudio Arrau, Ivan Moravec, Ida Haendel, Hilary Hahn.

He conducted the Vermont Symphony first in 2007, and is delighted to return. In Vermont, he also leads the orchestra at Middlebury College, appears this season with the Burlington Chamber Orchestra, and directed a memorial concert on 9/11/2011 with the Green Mountain Mahler Festival, featuring Mahler’s second symphony, and his own memorial composition Early Mourning.

The violin concerto, Another Spring, composed as a companion piece for Vivaldi, was performed recently in Wisconsin, and he has several compositions in the pipeline, along with essays on the hidden message of Britten’s War Requiem, and on music by Webern, Mahler, and Beethoven.

Like so many in Vermont, he lives hidden away in the hills, listening to the wind move through the forest, hearing the Hermit thrush, delighted to be able to drive to the airport encountering no traffic lights. His wife, Sabra, heads the Mountain Fiber Folk Cooperative, and his grown children live in Florida and England.


Ann Greenawalt, oboe, holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in performance from the Juilliard School. At Juilliard she was fortunate to have the opportunity to study English horn with Thomas Stacy, principal English horn with the New York Philharmonic. In 1989 she became a member of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra when she won the contracted English horn position. In addition, she teaches privately, and performs with Opera North and the Burlington Choral Society. Since moving to Vermont in 1984, she has also played with the Hanover Chamber Orchestra, the Vermont Mozart Festival, and the New England Bach Festival. Ann works part-time at Ellis Music Company, a business founded by her father-in-law, Richard Ellis. She resides in South Royalton, Vermont with her husband, trumpeter David Ellis, and has two grown children, Emily and Miles.



Mark Emery, trumpet, grew up in California and Oregon. After hearing a brass quintet perform at his school, he fell in love with the trumpet, and began learning how to read music while singing hymns in church. He earned his B.M. from Portland State University in 1998.

Mark is a graduate of New England Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center, where he received the "Roger Voisin Trumpet Award." In addition to playing principal trumpet with Vermont Symphony and Opera North in Lebanon, NH, Mark has performed with National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, has toured and recorded with the Boston Pops Orchestra under Keith Lockhart, and has performed extensively with the Boston Symphony, including six Carnegie Hall performances and dozens of concerts at Tanglewood under the greatest conductors in the world. Mark can be heard on recordings by Vermont Symphony, Boston Pops, Oregon Symphony, Callithumpian New Music Consort, Huntington Brass, and Innovata Brass.