Charity and Sylvia inspired a graphic novel, so why not an orchestral composition? Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup brought that idea to Vermont Symphony Orchestra two years ago, when he was working with Vermont’s then-cartoonist laureate Tillie Walden on a retelling of the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, the lesbian couple who lived openly and ran a business together in 19th-century Weybridge.
Orchestra conductor and music director Andrew Crust and executive director Elise Brunelle proposed commissioning a new work about the women’s relationship; Kaufman Ilstrup, executive director of Vermont Humanities, agreed to help pay for it. The fruits of that collaboration, “Summerland,” will premiere this Friday, September 18, at the Flynn in Burlington as part of Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening concert, “Charity, Sylvia & Cleopatra.”
The piece, by composer Clarice Assad, imagines Drake and Bryant trying to find each other on an “ethereal plane” in the afterlife and remember their time together.
“I really like the way in which she can take a sort of standard story and make it modernist and avant-garde,” Crust said of Assad, a Grammy-nominated Brazilian American composer, vocalist and pianist. “But at the same time, [she’s] making music that is very overtly emotional and easy to respond to as a listener.”
Vermont Humanities pledged $30,000 over three years to help the VSO cover commissioning expenses, Kaufman Ilstrup said. The National Endowment for the Humanities had approved federal money for the project, but by spring 2025, after the Department of Government Efficiency dismantled the funding and staff of the endowment and other federal agencies, “their priorities had changed,” and the grant was canceled, he said. The Vermont Arts Council then kicked in another $10,000.
In choosing Assad, Brunelle and Crust wanted a female and preferably queer composer to tell the story of Bryant and Drake and write the libretto. Vocalists Nikola Printz, a San Francisco mezzo-soprano and returning VSO soloist, and New York City soprano Danielle Buonaiuto will perform the piece.
For source material, the Vermonters pointed Assad to the vast archive of the couple’s documents at the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury — the same collection that informed Walden’s graphic novel Charity & Sylvia, released earlier this year.
“There’s just so many ways into this story now that I think are really interesting,” Kaufman Ilstrup said, referring to Assad’s and Walden’s works, as well as a previous biography of Drake and Bryant by historian Rachel Hope Cleves. “They’re all basing the story on this series of letters and journals and grocery receipts that exist at the Henry Sheldon Museum.”
Crust built the rest of the concert program around the theme of remarkable women who transcended difficult circumstances. It includes portions of the Giuseppe Verdi opera Aida and Hector Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre (The Death of Cleopatra). The orchestra will also play the overture from the 2000 film Dancer in the Dark, which starred Icelandic singer Björk as a visually impaired Czech immigrant living in rural Washington State and working in horrible conditions to provide a better life for her son. She composes and sings sweeping musical numbers instead of falling into despair.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights will anchor the second half of the program. The suite’s titular character disarms her murderous captor by weaving complicated tales. The solo violin represents Scheherazade’s voice, to be played by VSO concertmaster Katherine Winterstein.
“All of the composers write different emotions into the music, which kind of illustrate a complete picture of these women’s lives, from the sublime to the violent to everything that was happening to them,” Crust said.
Matt LaRocca, VSO artistic adviser and project conductor, hosts events each season to give audiences a peek behind the orchestra’s curtain. For the opening concert, he and Crust held a happy hour at the Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge in Burlington on Tuesday. On the afternoon of the Flynn concert, Assad and the soloists will join him at the University of Vermont Recital Hall for an informal chat and to answer questions. He also will collaborate with Vermont Humanities on a series of talks around the state.
“To find those moments where we can talk about the music and lean into it outside of the concert hall is great,” LaRocca said.
Later this year, the VSO’s Halloween concert will feature “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from Disney’s Fantasia, as well as a suite from Jordan Peele’s movie Nope. In the spring, the orchestra will lean into Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
With all of its programming, the VSO strives to reach a broad array of tastes, whether someone loves hardcore classical or creative contemporary music, Brunelle said. That’s especially true of “Charity, Sylvia & Cleopatra.”
“I want the audience to know that an orchestra concert is simply musical storytelling, that you’ve got so many incredible stories, human stories that can be told through music,” Brunelle said. “This one happens to focus on remarkable women.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Philharmonic Feminism | Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening concert, “Charity, Sylvia & Cleopatra,” focuses on remarkable women”
This article appears in Performing Arts Preview • 2026.
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