Diana Fanning: Every time you put down a really important piece of music and then come back to it again, you just hear many new things.
Matt LaRocca: It鈥檚 the most beautiful part of music making for me.
James Stewart: Those are the voices of Matt LaRocca鈥�
Matt LaRocca: I am the music director for the .
James Stewart: 鈥nd Diana Fanning,
Diana Fanning: I'm a pianist. I am playing in the , in large part because I played in the very first concert by the Champlain Philharmonic, which was 20 years ago.
James Stewart: Diana, Matt and I had a chance to speak over Zoom about the orchestra, its anniversary and its history.
Diana Fanning: The Champlain Philharmonic was founded by David Gusikov, who's a violinist, and Dieuwke Davydov, a cellist who are both Vermont Symphony members and very wonderful professional musicians. And they thought it was a shame that all the amateur musicians in the Champlain Valley had no orchestra to play in. So they decided to do something about it. And it's just fantastic that it's still going after 20 years. I'm pretty sure that a number of the players that were there 20 years ago are still there. So it鈥檚 really great to see old friends again.
Matt LaRocca: The continuity and the longevity has been something that I think is pretty special and pretty amazing. We're a community orchestra. We have such a wealth of talent and creativity in this state, and I want us to be a home for that. Players come from all over 鈥� high school students play with us and college students 鈥� they all make this journey into Vergennes every week. Our home base is in Middlebury, although we rehearse in Vergennes High School. Thank you, Vergennes, and so we perform in Middlebury every year and Rutland.
James Stewart: The next performances of the Champlain Philharmonic are taking place Saturday, March 29th, 7:30pm at the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury and Sunday, March 30th, 4:00pm at Grace Congregational Church in Rutland.
Diana Fanning: I've been down to Grace Church. They have a spectacular music program there, and I'm really looking forward to playing there for the Rutland audience. And of course, I love playing for my home audience in Middlebury. That's the best, always.
James Stewart (on tape): So, tell us about this concert on the 29th and 30th, what鈥檚 on the program? What can we expect?
Matt LaRocca: We open up with 鈥淩itual Fire Dance鈥� by Manuel De Falla, which is just, if I may, a classical banger. It's fast, heavy, hot and it's just, it's so much fun. We transition then to a symphony that Borodin wrote, Symphony No 3, never finished. Glazunov, one of his friends and colleagues, took care of finishing it out after Borodin died. But it's got this lovely dance movement, the second movement that's all in 5/8. And then we have a silent film, a partnership that I started at the VSO with the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. It's this beautiful animated film called 鈥淭wo Balloons鈥�, which is the story of two lemurs who fall in love while flying dirigibles.
James Stewart: Matt LaRocca composed and arranged the music to accompany the film which finishes the first half of the concert. The second half begins with a piece by Vermont composer Patricia Julian entitled 鈥淎mong the Hidden.鈥�
Matt LaRocca: One of the initiatives that I took with the CPO is that every concert we play will feature a work by a Vermont composer. And then, we close it out with Diana and Beethoven.
Diana Fanning: It's the Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in c minor. C minor was a very important key for Beethoven. He wrote the fifth symphony in that key. So C minor has a kind of perhaps tragic character, but this concerto really contains every emotion. So we start in c Minor, very dark, very stormy, dramatic. We have this gorgeous middle movement that's just ethereal and out of this world. And then Beethoven pulls us back to earth with a dance.
James Stewart: Join pianist Diana Fanning and the Champlain Philharmonic, under the direction of Matt LaRocca, as they celebrate their 20th anniversary season. The concerts are Saturday, March 29th, 7:30 pm at the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury and Sunday, March 30th, 4pm at Grace Congregational Church in Rutland.
Diana Fanning: There's nothing more exciting than to hear a live concert by a full orchestra,
Matt LaRocca: you get a little bit of everything in a beautiful setting.
