home | contact | sound samples | discography | calendar | reviews and testimonials | photos and press materials | site map | mailing list sign-up

classical: biography | performance programs | repertoire lists | educational talks | film: “Beyond 88 Keys”
jazz: biography | performance programs | tune lists | originals jazz charts | educational talks
off-stage: writings on music | blog | teaching | wedding music | non-music interests

 

Vermont Millennium Music Festival




Oops - please ignore everything underneath this line: we've created a new web-site at www.vmmf.org and have moved all correct information over to that site. Sorry for the inconvenience!







Vermont Millennium Festival

Friday, September 15 - Monday, September 18, 2000
Various locations in Montpelier, Vermont

Music from the year 1000 to the year 2000

If you would like to skip down to the preliminary Festival Schedule, click here. We'd be happy to mail you our brochure -- just e-mail us with your mailing address.

If you'd like to volunteer, contact our Volunteer Coordinator, Barbara Buckley, at 802-223-6242. More complete contact information can be found here.

(some of the below under construction)
Current Festival Schedule
About the Performers
Top Ten Pieces of the Millennium (that you can hear at the festival)
Photos of some of the performance spaces, and links to information about Montpelier


Immediately below on this page: a general description of the festival.

We're updating this page frequently. Please check back from time to time to see how we're progressing. Latest update: April 20, 2000.

The Concept

A week-long festival surveying some of the greatest music of the past 1000 years. Pieces will be presented chronologically over the course of the festival, starting with music from the year 1000 and ending with compositions from the year 2000 that look towards the future. Those who attend the entire festival will have an unprecedented opportunity to hear "live" within the time-span of a week the evolution of musical styles of a thousand years -- the aural equivalent of the effect of time-lapse photography.

The festival aims at this moment at the dawn of a new millennium to reflect and celebrate the effort of a great diversity of artists over the past 1000 years, and to invite the music of the future.

Although the central focus of the festival will be Western-based classical music, there will be portions of the festival devoted to other musical genres and other art forms such as poetry, craft-work, the visual arts, and food. We also hope to include at the festival at least two major theatrical music works and musical compositions with dance.

In addition to concerts which intriguingly mix solo, vocal, chamber music, choral, orchestral, dance, theater, and multi-media compositions, the Vermont Millennium Festival will present a number of exciting special events, including a re-creation of a day at the University of Paris of the 1200's, an outdoors medieval and renaissance "Faire," an historical instrument exhibition, a madrigal dinner, and many hands-on workshops, exhibits, and lecture-demonstrations featuring cultural achievements of the millennium in all the arts.

The festival will be presented utilizing over a dozen performance spaces all around the city of Montpelier, Vermont, America's most intimate and walkable capital city. Visitors from outside the region will enjoy exploring some of the attractive and historic buildings of Montpelier as the festival moves around town, and in road-trips to take in the visual beauty of Vermont's autumn foliage display.

Performers will include a mix of Vermont talent with invited guest artists from Canada and other parts of the United States.

Come join us next September for an amazing time-travel journey. Save the dates, save your vacation time -- we know you'll want to experience one thousand years of music!

The Origin of the Festival

The festival was the brainchild of Catherine Broucek Orr, a local conductor active here in Montpelier, Vermont. Many of the more interesting ideas for events at the festival were the result of working sessions she had throughout the summer of 1998 with Michael Arnowitt, a Montpelier concert pianist.

Michael then went on to research the music of the past 1000 years, educating himself about different historical periods. For the festival program, he's come up with what we think you'll find an extremely exciting brew of wonderful solo, chamber, choral, and orchestral music which will be imaginatively intermixed even within individual programs as we proceed through the festival on our chronlogical journey. These selected pieces of music deeply reveal what our culture has produced over the past thousand years. It's going to be a great festival!

Special Features

Here are some of the more interesting ideas for special events at the festival -- these are in addition to the many music concerts that naturally make up the core of festival activity. Your ideas and suggestions are certainly solicited.

  • A re-creation of a day at the University of Paris of the 1200's
  • Outdoor Medieval & Renaissance "Faire" with pageantry, swordplay, fair activities, game-playing, historical dress and food demonstrations, Renaissance dance performances, poetry readings, music, craft demonstrations, and special presentations on printing and other cultural developments of the time
  • An historical instrument exhibition
  • A madrigal dinner with an historical meal
  • Late-night candlelight performance of Gesualdo's Tenebrae responsoria
  • One-person show on the life of J.S. Bach)
  • Learn to dance a minuet
  • Workshops on improvisational traditions in classical music
  • Bird-song in classical music -- presentation with music, slides of birds, and commentary
  • Demonstration of hybrid electronic/acoustic instruments
  • Multimedia compositions
  • Workshop on new performance techniques (acoustic instruments)
  • Humor in classical music through the ages
  • Tour through American popular music of the 20th century
  • Special concert on the history of jazz
  • Poetry through the Millennium - survey of international poetry read by local writers and actors
  • Concert of traditional music from around the world
  • Stockhausen's "Music for a House" -- different compositions are played simultaneously in various rooms of a house which the audience walks through
  • Children's concert with some pieces on the program performed by area youth
We plan to present the following theatrical music works:

Sponsus -- late 1000's
The Play of Daniel -- early 1200's
An excerpt performed by Vermont Opera Theater of a brand-new opera, A Fleeting Animal: An Opera from "Judevine," composed by Erik Nielsen with libretto by David Budbill. Budbill's "Judevine" is widely regarded as the most important play by a Vermont author of the last twenty years.
And excerpts (unacted) from Orfeo by Monteverdi -- 1607; generally considered the work that established opera as a genre
.
A major development in 20th century music was composers' interest in dance. We hope to be able to do at least one or two of the following:

The Creation of the World -- Darius Milhaud
A work, to be determined, by Igor Stravinsky
A Bauhaus piece from the 1930's
Appalachian Spring -- Aaron Copland
Dance sequences from West Side Story -- Leonard Bernstein
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun -- Claude Debussy

Where and When

The festival is scheduled from Friday, September 15 to Sunday, September 24 of the year 2000, ten days spanning two weekends and the week in-between. The timing is hoped to coincide with the beginning of foliage season while still permitting weather warm enough for a few outdoors events. Out-of-state visitors may wish to take a morning road-trip to Vermont's famous Northeast Kingdom to view the natural beauty of the foliage display, then return to Montpelier for afternoon and evening concerts.

Montpelier, Vermont is our nation's most intimate capital city, blessed with a number of beautiful and historic buildings. We aim to present the festival "First Night" style, so events will take place throughout the town, utilizing a great diversity of venues -- hopefully matching the type of music presented with the architecture and the feel of the space. Here are some of the performance sites:

  • State House (well of the House, Senate chambers, and other smaller rooms as well)


  • Vermont College Chapel


  • Wood Art Gallery


  • Pyralisk Arts Center (being renovated on Stonecutters Way)


  • Kellogg-Hubbard Library


  • Unitarian Church


  • Trinity Methodist Church


  • The outdoors "Faire" - on the State House Lawn


  • Atrium of the Blanchard Block, 73 Main St. (was the old Montpelier Opera House)


  • Victorian Lobby of the Vermont Historical Society's Museum


  • Smilie Auditorium


  • Christ Church


  • Bethany Church


  • Other houses in downtown Montpelier


  • Several performances will also take place at our region's primary performance center, the Barre Opera House


  • The Old Labor Hall in Barre


  • Plus a few surprise locations!


Can I Help?

Most definitely! Help from the community and beyond will be essential to the success of the festival.

Our Volunteer Coordinator is Barbara Buckley. If you would like to help with the organization of the festival, or serve as a volunteer in any capacity, please contact her at 802-223-6242.

Other Contact Information

Our Director of Development is Elizabeth Rohrer. If you would like information on matters such as how to make a tax-deductible contribution to the festival, or how to become a sponsor (individual or corporate) of a particular concert or event at the festival, please contact her at 802-223-8951.

Our Artistic Director is Michael Arnowitt. You can reach him at 802-229-0984 for media interviews, if you are interested in performing at the festival, or if you have general inquiries or questions regarding the artistic content of the festival.

If you are interested in attending the festival and would like to be mailed information about it, please contact:

Vermont Millennium Festival
P.O. Box 833
Montpelier, Vermont 05601
802-229-0984
arnowitt@sover.net


woodcut by Mary Azarian

Music and Performers of the Festival

Here's the preliminary schedule for the festival:

The festival's Historical Instrument Exhibition will be open from Friday, Sept. 15 through Friday, Sept. 22 in the Wood Room of the Wood Art Gallery on the Vermont College campus, during the gallery's regular hours, 12 - 4 pm Tuesday through Sunday (closed Mondays). Curated.by Phil Robertson

If you have an interesting instrument, either of historical times or a novel new instrument, that you would be willing to exhibit, please contact us. It's also possible for instrument builders to sell instruments at the exhibition.

An exhibit on the history of printing through the millennium will be on display at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library (built 1896) throughout September.

Friday evening, Sept. 15 - Opening Night
site: Vermont College chapel, 8 pm

1000

Procession
Chant - Ave maris stella, Pange lingua, others
Earliest notated 2-part music (organa from France)
Sponsus (late 1000’s) - a short non-liturgical drama (in Latin & Provençal)

1100

Hildegard

Hildegard - selections from the Symphonia (1140’s);
    O quam mirabilis est, Vos flores rosarum, O clarissima mater
    performed by members of Anima
Notre Dame school (c. 1163-1200):
Léonin - selections from the Magnus liber
Pérotin - first 3, 4-part compositions c. 1200 Viderunt omnes
Anonymous - Veni creator spiritus
Congaudet hodie (Catalan, 1100’s)

1200

Theater - The Play of Daniel (early 1200’s)

Saturday, Sept. 16
Special event: Re-creation of a day at the University of Paris in the 1200’s
site: Unitarian Church of Montpelier, 9 am - 6 pm

the monastery: chant every three hours throughout the day
different activities of the scholar-monks will be taking place
    in various small rooms of the church
exhibits/demonstrations of other medieval artistic achievements
    such as illuminated manuscripts, stained-glass making, poetry

Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 16-17

Of the pieces of music noted below from this time period, the sacred music will be performed in Saturday and Sunday afternoon concerts at various indoor locations tbd, and in Saturday and Sunday evening concerts at 8 pm at the Vermont College chapel. Meanwhile, secular music will be presented throughout the weekend as part of our outdoor "Faire."

Special event: Medieval & Renaissance “Faire”
site tbd (probably State House Lawn;
rain back-up location, Pyralisk Arts Center)

Saturday, 12 noon - 4 pm. A fair scene from the Middle Ages.
Sunday, 12 noon - 4 pm. A Renaissance fair.

(The aim of the "Faire" is not historical re-creation, but to give a sense of the activities and cultural endeavors of these two time periods, and to provide a fun time for people of all ages.

What will be going on at the Faire?
*pageantry, swordplay, juggling, fools, game-playing
*Renaissance dance (performances and workshops)
*craft demonstrations: weaving, textiles, blacksmith
*historical dress and food demonstrations
*Morris dancing
*Commedia dell'arte
*presentation on development of printing (first book printed in Europe, c. 1445)
*presentation on Nostradamus (1503-1566) and his prophecies
*poetry readings - Carmina Burana (c. 1220), Chaucer (late 1300’s), etc.
*bagpipes (performed by Steven Light)

secular music to be performed at the Faire
Troubadour music - 12th & 13th centuries
Sumer is icumen in (c. 1250)
Hocket - first purely instrumental multi-part music, 13th and 14th centuries
Laude - Italian non-liturgical religious songs, 1200-1600; sung on feast days
Cantigas de Santa Maria (1252-1284) - Galician/Portuguese songs
    Cantiga 56 - Gran dereit'é, Cantiga 90 - Sola fusti senlleira
    Cantiga 100 - Santa Maria, strela do dia
    Cantiga 250 - Por nos Virgen Madre, Cantiga 320 - Santa Maria leva
Music of Adam de la Halle, c. 1230-1300; Je muir, other pieces
Music from the Montpellier Codex (13th century manuscript from the
    French city for which Montpelier, Vermont was named)

1300

Ars nova (early 1300s)
excerpts from Le Roman de Fauvel (1316)
Philippe de Vitry - Impudenter circumivi, Cum statua

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) - ballades and rondeaux (art song)
Ars subtilior music from the Chantilly Codex (1370-1395) -
    music for voice, lute, vielles
Joseph, liber nefe min (German, 14th century)
Songs by Ostwald von Walkenstein (1376-1443)

Some of the performers of the above music:
Anima
Early Music Vermont
Fyre and Lightning Consort
Katy Taylor (voice and hurdy-gurdy)


Christ Church, Saturday afternoon
events to include:
Hildegard: slide presentation and performance by Katy Taylor
more to be determined

Special performance, Saturday evening

Guillaume de Machaut - mid 1300s - Messe de Nostre Dame;
perhaps the most famous piece of the Middle Ages.
We will perform this piece with four solo male singers (see below for full information on this concert at the Vermont College chapel).

1400

Early Renaissance
Sephardic music performed by the Fyre and Lightning Consort
Other secular music for recorder, lute, guitar
Gilles Binchois (c. 1400-1460) Rondeau "De plus en plus"
Selections from the Glogaues Liederbuch (German, 1460’s)

Sacred music concert, Saturday evening
site: Vermont College Chapel, 8 pm

Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame,
    performed with four solo singers
Guillaume Dufay (c.1400-1474) - Missa L’homme armé
    (groundbreaking work setting chant to harmony)
Johannes Ockeghem (c.1410-1497) - Offertorium from Requiem,
    Agnus Dei from Missa "De plus en plus"
Josquin Desprez (c.1440-1521) - Absalon Fili Mi for male chorus,
    Missa Pange Lingua
Jacob Obrecht (c. 1450-1505) Missa "sub tuum presidium confugimus"
     (3-7 parts. the number of parts increase in each successive
    movement of the mass)
    performed by the Festival Chamber Chorus

Sunday afternoon
short concert at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library, tbd



1500

Larger works of the later Renaissance, Sunday evening
site: Vermont College Chapel, 8 pm

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) Spem in alium for 40 voices,
    divided into 8 quintets; performed by Onion River Chorus
    with assistance from Friends of Music at Guilford and other choirs
Robert Carver (c. 1484-1568 or later) Scottish polyphonic composer,
    Mass "Dum Sacrum Mysterium" for 10 voices
    performed by the Festival Chamber Chorus
William Byrd (1543-1623) - Motet "Beata virgo" and Sanctus, Benedictus,
    and Agnus Dei from Mass for five voices, plus selections from
    My Ladye Nevells Booke (keyboard music)
Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594) - motets and other pieces
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) Motet “O Magnum Mysterium” (~1572)
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) - Missa Brevis (1570)

< Monday, Sept. 18
Special event: Madrigal Dinner
site: Old Labor Hall, Barre, 5:30 pm

English madrigals from Oxford Book of Madrigals
French madrigals (rather folk-music influenced)
Italian - some “normal,” (Gabrieli, Monteverdi, etc.), some by
    Carlo Gesualdo (c. 1561-1613) very Twilight-Zone fare
Giovanni Gabrieli - wrote a madrigal to celebrate the new century (1600)
historical meal
drinking songs
some instrumental interludes for contrast

1600

Excerpts (unacted) from Monteverdi's opera - L’Orfeo, 1607
site: Barre Opera House, 8 pm

Orfeo is generally regarded as the first “real” opera, the work that
    established opera as a genre

special late-night concert:
site tbd
Carlo Gesualdo - Tenebrae responsoria - 1611
performed with just candlelight

Tuesday, Sept. 19
site: State House - well of House, Senate chambers, other rooms

12 noon concert
Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1553-1612) brass antiphonal music
    (Sonata pian e forte, Canzona in the 7th Tone for 8 Parts,
    Canzona in the 9th Tone for 12 Parts; other possible brass music:
    Pietro Lappi - Canzon “La Seraphina,” (1616), Richard Dering
    (English, 1580-1630), Pavan
Gregorio Allegri - Miserere, for 5-part choir and an ornamenting 4-part
    “choir” of soloists (music composed c. 1630-1650)
    performed by the Festival Chamber Chorus
Michael Praetorius - (1571-1621) - Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming
John Dowland - Lachrimae (1604) for 5 viols & lute,
    song - In darkness let mee dwell (1610)
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) Mein junges Leben hat ein End’,
    performed on clavichord
Matthew Locke - music for recorder & harpsichord, mid-1600’s England

1700

J.S. Bach - 15 2-Part Inventions (1723), performed by 15 different students
Domenico Scarlatti - selected sonatas for keyboard (1730’s to 1750’s)
Sebastian de Albero (1722-1756) - Recercata, Fuga y Sonata en sol
    for harpsichord
PDQ Bach (for a surprise) - Iphigenia in Brooklyn (cantata)

2:30 pm
Simultaneous small events in different rooms; these segments performed twice
  • The improvised “unmeasured prelude” of the French Baroque - presentation by Michael Arnowitt; plus - bring your own tune for Michael to improvise on in the French baroque style
  • One-person theatrical presentation on the life of J.S. Bach, similar to those done for Cal Coolidge, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, etc.
  • Learn to dance a minuet with Maris Wolff (with a small chamber music ensemble to provide music)
Also at 2:30 pm, at Bethany Church (performed once)
Bach’s Greatest Organ Hits - Prelude and Fugue in E-flat “St. Anne,” Passacaglia, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, a chorale prelude, “Little” Fugue in G minor, excerpt from The Art of the Fugue

Evening - at the State House (well of the House)

Evening Concert I - 7 pm
J.S. Bach - Suite no. 6 in D major for cello solo (1720)
    performed by Linda Galvan, cello
Heinrich Schutz - selections from Symphoniae Sacrae III (1650) vocal concerti with soloists, chorus, and small orchestra
Bach - Concerto in D minor for 2 violins
    performed by the Vermont Youth Orchestra, Troy Peters conductor,
    with youth soloists tba
Bach - Chaconne, violin solo (1723)

Evening Concert II - 8:30 pm
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - before 1725
    performed by the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra Society,
    Catherine Broucek Orr, conductor

Wednesday, Sept. 20
morning
Special event: “Brandenburg Breakfast”
site tbd
A court breakfast, with some of the greatest music of the millennium,
Bach's Brandenburg Concertos no. 2 and 4 (1717-1721)


late 1700’s & early 1800’s


Classical period and early romantic music
Chamber music in 3 shorter concerts -- roughly one hour each
sites: Unitarian Church of Montpelier and others around town tba

1 pm
Mozart - string quintet in G minor, K. 516
Beethoven - piano sonata no. 32 in C minor, op. 111

2:15 pm
Beethoven a late string quartet; either op. 130 in B-flat with the Grosse Fuge
    or op. 131 in C# minor
Schubert - Adagio from the string quintet in C

3:30 pm
Mendelssohn - Octet
Schumann - Dichterliebe (song cycle)

Evening concerts: Barre Opera House
Orchestra Concert I - 7 pm
Beethoven - Leonore Overture
Mozart - Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488
    Diane Huling, piano soloist
Mozart -Symphony no. 40 in G minor
Haydn - Finale to “Farewell” Symphony


Orchestra Concert II - 8:30 pm
Beethoven - Symphony no. 3, “Eroica”

Thursday, Sept. 21
morning - Open rehearsals (public may watch)

12 pm - Wood Art GalleryBR> Schubert - Moments musicaux
    performed by Paul Orgel, piano

1 pm - Wood Art Gallery
Special event: Poetry Through the Millennium; survey of international poetry

3 pm - Bethany Church
Middle Romantic Period

1836


Chopin - Prelude in Ab major (1836-39), Scherzo no. 2 in Bb minor (1837),
Ballade no. 3 in Ab major (1840-41) -- performed by Alison Cerutti,
Ballade no. 4 in F minor (1842)
chamber music work tbd
Berlioz - Les nuits d'ete for solo singers and orchestra (1840-41), excerpts

7:30 pm - Smilie Auditorium
Romanticism’s Twilight Years

Wagner - Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (1857-59)
Liszt - Waltz from Guonod's Faust Concert Paraphrase,
    and selected Transcendental Études
    performed by Jeffrey Chappell, piano
Grieg - In the Hall of the Mountain King (1875), and
Tchaikovsky - Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy (1869-1880)
    performed by the Vermont Youth Orchestra, Troy Peters, conductor
Debussy - Reflets dans l’eau for piano (1905)
Brahms - 1st movement of Clarinet Quintet for clarinet and
    string quartet, op. 115 (1891)
Ravel - Ondine for solo piano, from Gaspard de la nuit (1908)
    performed by Paula Ennis-Dwyer
Mahler - last movement (Adagio) of Symphony no. 9, (1908-1909),
    Mahler’s “farewell” piece. Performed by the Festival Orchestra.

Friday, Sept. 22
morning
Lecture-demonstrations on music coming up
Lecture-demonstration on the history of consonance and dissonance
    through the millennium

afternoon concerts
site: the new Pyralisk Arts Center
1 pm - New Century, New Directions

Ives - The Unanswered Question - string orchestra + trumpet solo (1906)
Debussy - Syrinx for solo flute (1913)
Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire, op. 21 (1912) for soprano,
    flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano;
     introduction of “Sprechstimme”
Mahler - excerpts from Das Lied von der Erde (1908)

3 pm - The Roaring Twenties (& Thirties) - Cabarets, The Rise of Rhythm,
and Further Exploration of the New Ideas in the Inter-war Years

Bartok - String Quartet no. 4 (1928)
Kurt Weill - Selected songs from The Threepenny Opera (1928)
Anton Webern - 12-tone piece to be determined
Kurt Schwitters - Ur-Sonate, 1st movement - Dadaist piece for solo voice
    performed by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
Gershwin - Selected songs from “Porgy and Bess” (1935)
Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936),
    a classic of 20th century music
    performed by the Festival Orchestra

7:30 pm - The Importance of Dance, ballets with live music
site: Smilie Auditorium

This program is still very much in the planning stages. Some of the following pieces are being considered; we will probably do two of the below compositions:

Debussy - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Igor Stravinsky - ballet to be determined (possibly just piano reduction)
Darius Milhaud - La Création du Monde (1923)
A Bauhaus ballet from the 1930's
Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring (1943-1944)
Leonard Bernstein - dance sequences from West Side Story

Live tango dancing (?)

Saturday, Sept. 23
On display, Saturday and Sunday at the New Pyralisk Arts Center:
interactive CDs you can try out
exhibits on the physics of sound
exhibits of new instruments

Simultaneous performances

New Pyralisk Arts Center
10 am - The Joy of Jazz
[note: this program to be moved to
Fri. night after the dance program]

African origins
Scott Joplin - Maple Leaf Rag
New Orleans traditional jazz
Delta blues
Darius Milhaud - La Création
    du Monde, 1923 ballet
    combining classical and jazz
Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
    (Paul Whiteman jazz
    band version, 1924)
    Dan Bruce, piano soloist
Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn -
    various, 1930’s and 1940’s
Transcription of Art Tatum piano solos,
    performed by Michael Arnowitt
music of Thelonious Monk and
    Charlie Mingus
More recent jazz and jazz that
    looks toward the future

performers to include the Vermont Jazz Ensemble, the Dan Bruce Jazztet, and more
Smilie Auditorium
10 am - Children’s Concert
Winnie-the-Pooh stories read to
    accompaniment of Erik Satie
    piano pieces arranged for a
    small group of instruments and
    performed by students
    Edsel Hughes, narrator
Bartok - excerpts from Mikrokosmos,
    performed by local students
Sofia Gubaidulina - Fairy-Tale Poem,
    “The Little Chalk,” (1971)
Prokofiev - Peter and the Wolf (1936)
    with Edsel Hughes, narrator
1 pm
Presentation on humor in music,
drawing on pieces from many
different periods

Composers to be included: Telemann,
Haydn, Purcell, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven,
Rossini, Flanders & Swann, Spike Jones,
and David Gunn
1 pm
World War II, The Central Event
    of the Century
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time
     (1940), performed by the Vermont
    Contemporary Music Ensemble
Strauss - Metamorphosen for 23 solo
    strings (1945). Very moving piece.
Schoenberg - A Survivor from Warsaw
    (1947) for narrator, male chorus at end,
    and orchestra
Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of
    Hiroshima (1959-61) for 52 strings
    the last three pieces to be performed
    by the Festival Orchestra
Prokofiev - “Precipitato,” finale to
    Piano Sonata no. 7 (1939-42)
    performed by Michael Arnowitt

3 pm
Birdsong in classical music:
presentation with music,
slides of birds, and commentary
3pm
After the War: Composers Go “Over the Top” / Explosion of Experimentation, Eastern Influences, and The Birth of Electronic Music

John Cage - 3 Dances for two prepared,
    amplified pianos (1944-45)
Edgard Varèse - Déserts (1950-54) - for
    14 winds, piano, 5 percussion, and tape
    based on recorded sounds of factories,
    foundries, and sawmills in Philadelphia
Stockhausen - Klavierstuck XI (1956) -
    aleatoric [some elements of piece
    determined by chance]
Charles Wuorinen - Bearbeitungen uber
    das Glogaues Liederbuch (1477-88;
    1962) arrangements of early music
     in a 20th century style for flute, clarinet
    violin, and bass
John Cage - 4'33" (1952)
Morton Feldman - piece to be determined
    either Structures for string quartet
    (1951) or The King of Denmark (1964)
    for solo percussion
Conlon Nancarrow - Studies for
    player piano (play recordings)
Gyorgy Ligeti - Lux aeterna, for 16 singers
    (1966); was in movie" 2001"
Luciano Berio - Sequenza III for solo
    voice (1965)

evening
Concert of traditional world music
Bulgarian music
Indian music
British Isles ballads, mouth music,
    and sea shanties
Gamelan
Romany
Taiko drumming
Sub-Saharan African (Cameroon,
    Uganda, Central African Republic)
Andean flute music
evening
Performance of part of a new opera by Erik Nielsen and David Budbill
based on characters from “Judevine” (production being toured by Vermont Opera Theater)

Settling In After the Turbulent '60s - Masterpieces of Our Own Time
Gyorgy Ligeti - selected Piano Etudes,
    Books I and II (1985-1994)
    performed by Michael Arnowitt, piano
Arvo Part - The Woman with the Alabaster Box (1997), for chorus
Lou Harrison - Concerto for Piano
    and Gamelan


Sunday, Sept. 24

10:30 am - location to be determined (house downtown)
Stockhausen - Musik fur ein Haus - 1968; different pieces of music are performed
simultaneously in various rooms of the house, which the audience strolls through

afternoon - three different locations, events go on simultaneously
Pyralisk Arts Center
1 pm
Workshop on special hybrid acoustic-electronic instruments

Smilie Auditorium
1 pm
Pierre Boulez - Domaines (1968) - for solo clarinet and 21 instruments; a spatial piece, clarinet moves around six instrumental groups

site tbd
1 pm
Tour of American pop music through the 20th century (recordings) - host tbd
2pm
Workshop on digital editing
2 pm
Ben Johnston - Amazing
    Grace (1973), for
    string quartet
George Crumb - Ancient
    Voices of Children
    (1970), for soprano,
    oboe, mandolin, piano,
    and percussion; based
    on poetry of Federico
    García Lorca
Sofia Gubaidulina -
    Quartet no. 4 (1993)
    for string quartet
    and tape
Kevin Volans - She Who
    Sleeps With A Small
    Blanket, for solo
    percussion; performed
    by Beverley Johnston
3 pm
Workshop on new acoustic instrumental techniques (flute, clarinet - Jerry McBride, piano, trombone, voice)







3:30 pm
Music from the year 2000
3 pm
Showcase of Music by Vermont Composers

Edwin Lawrence -
    Five Songs (on
    Middle English texts)
Woodwind pieces (tbd)
Louis Moyse -
    work tbd
    performed by
    Karen Kevra, flute
    and Paul Orgel, piano
more, to be determined
4:30 pm
Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians
4:30 pm
Keith Jarrett's Jan. 24,
    1975 Köln Concert
    solo piano improvisation
    performed by
    Jeffrey Chappell
-- dinner break --

Closing Night concert - Smilie Auditorium

7:30 pm - Final Concert

Bread and Puppet Theater
A humorous song for the new millennium
Sampler of short pieces selected from the festival,
    arranged chronologically, plus one new multimedia
    piece (music with film, sculpture, or other art form)
Recession


Back to Home Page