Listen Wednesday, May 14 at 8 p.m.
Join Helen Lyons for a special edition of the VSO on 开云体育 Classical this week. She'll be speaking with music director Andrew Crust about the 's recently announced 2025 - 2026 season. With music of Dinuk Wijeratne, Modest Mussorgsky, Chelsea Komschlies, Augusta Holmes, Gabriela Ortiz, and Carl Orff they'll preview the VSO's four mainstage concerts. Learn about the diverse offerings coming to the VSO next season and get ready to mark your calendars!
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TRANSCRIPT
HELEN LYONS: Good evening, I'm Helen Lyons, thanks so much for joining me. Tonight, in a slightly different format from our usual Wednesday night Vermont Symphony Orchestra concert, we'll be hearing from, by now a familiar name to us all, the music director of the VSO, Andrew Crust. He'll be bringing us a preview of the VSO's recently announced 2025 - 2026 season. We'll hear excerpts from some of the pieces the orchestra will be performing on their 4 mainstage concerts throughout the year. To check out all the season details, head to . Andrew, thanks so much for speaking with me. Take us through the season, beginning with the first mainstage performances in September at the Flynn and Paramount Theaters.
ANDREW CRUST: Our first Flynn program is entitled East Meets West, and it's a wonderful blend of eastern music, Western music. There's some underrepresented composers in there. We start off with the first movement of the symphony by Ravi Shankar, the original sitar maestro who collaborated with the Beatles and so many other incredible western artists, and he wrote a symphony and it features a wonderful sitar solo as you would expect. So we've brought a Boston-based international sitar player to perform that with us, Rajiv Karmakar. The main soloist on this program though is a friend of mine, Sandeep Das, who is a Grammy award winning tabla player. He's one of the best tabla players in the world. That's the one of the, traditional Indian instruments, a set of drums, and it's one of the hardest instruments in the world to play. They create so many different incredible sounds, and composer Dinuk Wijeratne has written this Tabla Concerto, and he himself is Sri Lankan, Canadian born, amazing young composer. And this piece is unlike anything you've ever heard. It blends east and west perfectly. There's a big drum set solo, there are different ragas and and different percussion colors. It's really an incredible thing to hear, you know, and and Sandeep also uses vocal percussion in which he, he uses his mouth to create the same sounds that are in the tabla, and they actually have meaning. So when you play the tabla, it's also like reciting poetry, which he will explain to the audience and it's fascinating to see that unfold.
HELEN LYONS: Let's hear an excerpt from Dinuk Wijeratne's Tabla Concerto now. This is the middle movement, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain performing, led by Carlos Miguel Prieto with the great Sandeep Das, tabla soloist.
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HELEN LYONS: Tabla soloist Sandeep Das, who will be joining the VSO in that work, that was Dinuk Gujaratne's Tabla Concerto, middle movement. We heard the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, led by Carlos Miguel Prieto here on 开云体育 Classical, as we are exploring the Vermont Symphony Orchestra's 2025 - 2026 season with their music director Andrew Crust. So that was 鈥榚ast鈥� what will we find in the western hemisphere of this concert?
ANDREW CRUST: So then the second half of the program is our west elements. We're going to Russia and France in this case with Mazorgsky and Ravel for the Pictures at an Exhibition, which is really, I think one of the greatest orchestral showpieces that there is. So many colors, so much great orchestration, just about every instrument or instrument group has a solo, so it's really going to let the VSO shine on our first concert of the season. And what ties all these pieces together, I think, is the colorful orchestration. They all are just sparkling with all kinds of different color palettes and the orchestra, especially in the percussion and the woodwinds. It's just a wonderful way to introduce people to the full range of what an orchestra can do.
HELEN LYONS All right, let's enjoy a little taste of Ravel's sumptuous orchestration of Mussorgsky's work, the famous Great Gate at Kiev, which ends the piece. Mariss Jansons leads the Oslo Philharmonic.
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HELEN LYONS: That was Mariss Jansons leading the Oslo Philharmonic in the Great Gate at Kiev from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel. Ok, so we head deeper into autumn for the VSO鈥檚 second Mainstage concert of the year, what is the theme of this late October concert?
ANDREW CRUST: So, this program is entitled Pastoral Symphony, which is of course an homage to the final piece on the program, Ludwig von Beethoven's Symphony Number 6, Pastoral, which many people will know is his Nature Symphony. Beethoven was famous for taking long walks in nature in which he was composing while he was doing that, as many composers do. And the rest of the outside world was completely blocked out to him. He was totally inside his own brain, but nature was such an important part of his life, and each movement is sort of an impression of the natural world, and he writes a little bit of text before every movement, which he almost never did in any other piece, kind of describing his feelings. For example, the first happy thoughts upon entering the countryside when you live in the city - I'm paraphrasing - but yeah, this is not programmatic music other than perhaps there's a storm, and he tries to portray a storm with the orchestra, which works very well. But it's his general feelings and vibes going out into nature and how that, how that makes him change his way of thinking. This symphony was also revolutionary, I think, in that it was kind of proto minimalist in a way. He uses repeated cells in the music, rhythmic cells that don't really develop over time. There's one that repeats, it's literally 9 measures repeated, and the only difference is dynamic changes. So he was experimenting with new styles way, way, way back before these were even invented. So the first half continues this nature theme. We have William Grant Still's Wood Notes. He has been called the Dean of Afro-American composers. He was really the most important, first black composer in American history, in my opinion, who broke through so many barriers, and, he also studied a bit in France, and so he's blending a lot of American sounds, jazz, other homegrown American sounds with the European style, but it's a style all to his own. And this is a piece of music about nature as well, obviously, given the title. There are 4 poems by a white southern poet that he used to, Inspire this piece of music, and it was one of the first collaborations between a white writer and a black composer, especially in the South. So, another groundbreaking piece, but it's so colorful and whimsical and ethereal, and you, you can hear the mist on the moss and all of the little woodland creatures you can imagine. It's, it's a really beautiful piece of music, which Really sets the tone for the piece by Chelsea Komschlies called Mycelialore.
HELEN LYONS: Is this about mushrooms?
ANDREW CRUST: This is about mycelium and mushrooms, precisely, and Chelsea's actually a friend of mine. We did our doctorate together, while she was in her master's, I was in my doctorate. She's now finishing a doctorate at McGill in Montreal. She has always been one of these quirky composers. I say that in a good way because she goes in so many directions that no one else has thought of, and this is sort of a piece which is the voice of mushrooms. And you know, they've been here on planet Earth long before us, and there's actually a moment in this piece where the fungus has a voice and they speak through fixed electronics, which are skewed by a synthesizer. And the voice is describing how the fungus has seen humanity evolve through the ages in our society. And it gets a little dark, it gets a little intense because the fungus has experienced war and has experienced all of the human tragedy as well as the triumph. And so it's sort of a recounting by the mushrooms of what they've seen in human life. It's really fascinating, and it's unlike anything I've ever heard. This is part of a commission consortium, so this is a part of the slate of world premiers that is happening around the country. Chelsea will be in attendance at the performance, and I believe she'll be at the pre-concert talk as well to answer any of your questions.
HELEN LYONS: Well, as Beethoven and William Grant still are so familiar to our audiences, let's experience the musical world of Chelsea Komschlies. Now, Mycelialore is still in premieres, so no recording is available yet, but we're Alexis Hauser leading the McGill Symphony Orchestra in Sunken Cathedral as we get to know the musical language of Chelsea Komchlies, composer featured on the Vermont Symphony Orchestra's October concert.
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HELEN LYONS: Alexis Hauser leading the McGill Symphony Orchestra in Sunken Cathedral as we get to know the musical language of Chelsea Komschlies, composer featured on the Vermont Symphony Orchestra's October concert. If you're just tuning in, welcome. I'm Helen Lyons, joined by music director of the VSO Andrew Crust, who is treating us to a preview this evening of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra's upcoming mainstage season and for the 3rd concert of the season, deep in the winter time鈥�
ANDREW CRUST: So our February concerts this season, we're trying something a little bit different. It's going to be a matinee, and it's another themed concert. Not all of our concerts have themes, but this one is on Valentine's Day, so we thought, well, we better celebrate love. There's a lot of music on that topic. It's actually incredibly hard to to choose, but there's one piece that has nothing to do with love whatsoever, and that is the Philip Glass Violin Concerto No. 1 with our featured soloist Jennifer Ko. Now Jenny Koh was a student of previous VSO music director Jamie Laredo. She's been with the VSO many times, one of the best, and most exciting violinists in North America, and her particular angle tends to be new music. She's commissioned a lot of new pieces, and she's just a powerhouse with that kind of repertoire. She recommended Philip Glass, a lot of the musicians have been asking to perform Philip Glass, and he's, I think, gaining even more popularity these days than ever before. And so I'm very excited to be performing that piece for the first time with Jenny.
HELEN LYONS: We'll enjoy now the opening movement of Philip Glass's Violin Concerto. Gidon Kremer is our soloist, as Christoph von Dohnanyi leads the Vienna Philharmonic.
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HELEN LYONS: Absolutely gorgeous. That was the opening movement of Philip Glass's violin concerto. We heard Gidon Kremer violin as Christoph von Dohnanyi led the Vienna Philharmonic. So now let's turn to the love theme of this third main stage concert, a Valentine's Day matinee. You've got one of my favorites on this program by Augusta Holmes.
ANDREW CRUST: That is correct, and this is a really a new piece for me that I discovered because of this program. I was searching for pieces around the idea of love, and I came across this amazing composer, French composer, but originally Irish actually, and she was right there in that late romantic era. It's lush and beautiful music and of course the title means the night and love. It evokes themes of both of those things, right: longing and darkness, and it's just a little gem of a piece that I think will be introduced to our audience for the first time. Perhaps the first time they're ever hearing this composer as well.
HELEN LYONS: Well, let's hear a little of this lush intermezzo of Augusta Holmes, Night and Love. Patrick Davin leads the Rhineland Philharmonic.
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HELEN LYONS: La Nuit et L鈥檃mour - Night and Love by late 19th century French composer Augusta Holmes, we heard Patrick Davin leading the Rhineland Philharmonic. I'm Helen Lyons, speaking this evening with Andrew Crust, previewing the 2025, 2026 season of the VSO. And there are darker themes of love on this program too, it seems. You'll be showcasing one of the world's most beloved operas. I think Carmen hits the number one spot in the world's most performed operas nearly every year.
ANDREW CRUST: Yes, the tragedy of of Carmen, and the side of love that, as you said, is darker and and the the side which is about not only passion and and love, but jealousy and and rage and and all of these emotions that come around love.It's not just the positive ones, right? And we would be remiss to not explore the entire gamut of emotions around love on Valentine's Day. By the way, not everyone's happy on that day, are they?
HELEN LYONS: No, it can be a pretty fraught day!
ANDREW CRUST: Some of the most powerful music ever written, and we'll be playing two suites by the composer, no singing involved, but all of the musical lines are there in the orchestrated suite. It's almost like the real thing.
HELEN LYONS: OK, before we move on to the season's final concert, it looks like you've got a little bit of an outlier on this 3rd concert. Tell us about this Frank Zappa work.
ANDREW CRUST: So, our executive director and myself, Elise Brunelle and myself, both really like Frank Zappa, and I'm hoping this will draw a different crowd than usual to the symphony. He not only was a part of Mothers of Invention, one of the most impressive bands in terms of their instrumental ability, but he was a composer of many diverse sounds and styles, and he also wrote orchestral or classical music. There's an album called Yellow Shark, which is some of the most interesting avant-garde contemporary music I've ever heard in my life, and we've both been obsessed with this music for a while. And so Elise and I really wanted to find a way to put some Frank's apple somewhere and we thought this is one of my favorite pieces of his. And here it is, G-spot Tornado. It sounds exactly like the title. He's great with titles and it's a wild dance, a wild celebration, lots of percussion, lots of brass. It's gonna have you dancing like crazy before the Philip Glass.
HELEN LYONS: Some Frank Zappa maximalism before the Philip Glass minimalism! And that is a wide ranging program. Well, we're coming to the end of our hour together, but we still have one stop on the VSO mainstage concert tour to go. All right, Andrew, bring us home: the grand finale of next season, which will be in May at the Flynn. What do you have on offer here?
ANDREW CRUST: So our final main stage program of the year is bringing together our entire VSO family, including the chorus as well, which is always incredibly exciting for one of the greatest known choral orchestral works of all time, and that is, of course, Carmina Guana by Karl Orff, which requires a large chorus, 3 vocal soloists, and a a a massive orchestra. It opens though, this concert, with a piece by Gabriela Ortiz, Kauyumari, which was written in 2021. She's a Mexican composer. This was commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, and it refers to the blue deer in the Huicho mythology, and that's sort of a a spiritual guide that is encountered actually on a peyote journey, as a part of an official ceremony for that community. And it's incredibly Mexican sounding in that way. It has so much of that rhythmic drive and a lot of those interesting percussion instruments, and that's actually the reason I paired it with the orf was the dance-like quality, the percussion writing, but also the idea of folklore and ancient myths and ideas that are infused into both pieces.
HELEN LYONS: Oh, this is really exciting. Gabriela Ortiz is a new composer to me. I'm really excited to explore her music. Let's have a listen now to Kauyumari, which will feature on that final concert of the VSO's 2025, 2026 season.Gustavo Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
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HELEN LYONS: Music from Huichol folklore, Gabriela Ortiz鈥檚 Kayumari. Gustavo Dudamel led the Los Angeles Philharmonic here on 开云体育 Classical. I'm speaking this evening with Andrew Crust previewing the 2025 to 2026 season of the VSO. And as you mentioned a little earlier, you're going to be ending this concert and the season with quite a bang. Carmina Burana to me has a quality of a fever dream, which I think you're right, really does pair well with the Gabriela Ortiz piece we just heard.
ANDREW CRUST: This piece stretches the gamut of pretty much every human emotion, in ways that you never imagined. Now this is a piece of music which is rooted in medieval poetry and imagery. It's sung in Latin. So if you've never heard Carmina Burana live, this is a piece that from the very opening, everyone knows this music. It's really unlike any other experience in the concert hall to have the full symphony, 6 percussionists, huge brass section, full choir - this is one of those pieces that you have to hear in real life once in your life.
HELEN LYONS: And now to close this special program highlighting the Vermont Symphony Orchestra's upcoming season on the main stage, we'll enjoy the thrilling final moments of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana as Herbert Blomstedt leads the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
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HELEN LYONS: Herbert Blomstedt led the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and chorus in the final moments of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, and that is how the VSO will end their 2025 - 2026 season. I'm Helen Lyons. My thanks to Andrew Crust for joining me this hour to talk about the season's music - some really exciting things ahead - and my thanks to you for listening. For more details and tickets, head to . And now, the music continues on 开云体育 Classical right after this station identification. Have a lovely evening.
