Vermont’s classical music scene has a new power couple: flutist Jillian Reed and pianist Tyler Emerson. Originally from Montpelier and Lyndonville, respectively, the 29-year-olds first met as high schoolers backstage at a Young Artist Showcase Recital at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Burlington. They married in 2024.
So it was appropriate that a St. Paul’s audience last month was among the first to hear of the couple’s newest appointment: as co-artistic directors of Capital City Concerts. During a February 27 performance, flutist Karen Kevra announced that Reed and Emerson will take over the Montpelier-based series she founded 26 years ago.
Kevra will continue in an advising role and as a guest artist. In a press release, she wrote that Reed — her student of four years — and Emerson “are outstanding communicators, experienced administrators, and live and breathe the human connection that is at the heart of chamber music.”
Reed, who is tall and gregarious, and Emerson, calm and practical, bring a shared passion not just for music but also for social activism. And, usefully, they know business and organizational management.
Reed served as principal flute in both the Green Mountain Youth Symphony and the Vermont Youth Orchestra before enrolling at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music in Pittsburgh. After a yearlong illness — she is “totally healthy” now, she said — she transferred to Bard College and Conservatory in New York, earning a dual degree in flute performance and human rights. Reed said her ailment alerted her to the problem of “what happens when musicians can’t make music.” She wrote her human-rights thesis on issues of health and ableism in the music world.
Emerson’s trajectory has been oddly similar, and not just because he and Reed both attended Capital City Concerts while growing up. A veteran of the VYO as a violinist — an instrument he now plays “for fun,” he said — he won the Vermont All State Music Festival solo scholarship as a pianist his senior year of high school. At SUNY Purchase College and Conservatory of Music, Emerson double majored in economics and piano performance but took time off after a sudden leukemia diagnosis, followed by three years of cancer treatment. He wrote his thesis on people with disabilities and the American labor force.
The couple’s interest in helping others has led them to worlds beyond music. Reed cofounded a secondhand clothing operation in 2020, called Thrift 2 Fight, to support social justice work in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. She now co-runs the business out of a storefront in Tivoli, N.Y. — a town near Bard where she and Emerson live and maintain studios. In a 2023 TEDx talk, she and her cofounder explained how Thrift 2 Fight sustains itself and funds local social justice efforts entirely through donated clothes.
Meanwhile, Reed performs in major New York City venues as a sub in the American Symphony Orchestra, among others, and teaches in Bard Conservatory’s preparatory program for students under 18.
Emerson called his illness and recovery “a transformative experience,” adding, “It’s hard to believe that everything is fine now.” He’s since testified before the Vermont legislature in support of paid family and medical leave, as well as organized bone marrow donor drives. He now volunteers on a state-funded climate committee in Tivoli and works as a research manager at Bard’s nonprofit Economic Democracy Initiative.
The couple will start living part time in Vermont when their Capital City Concerts tenure begins. In the meantime, they will perform in the series’ final concert under Kevra — “Fauré Foray,” on April 25 at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier.
Neither expects to dramatically shift the musical focus of Capital City Concerts, which has regularly highlighted works for flute and often included pianists. But will the series address issues of social justice moving forward?
“Absolutely,” Reed said. “I think musicians do their best work when they think of their artistry as connected with what’s happening in the world.”
This article appears in March 11 • 2026.
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