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View ProfilesPublished December 6, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
The holidays can't exist on shopping alone — there must be music. Many seasonal concerts have already happened, but audiences can enjoy at least seven more worthy events in northern and central Vermont before the holidays arrive. They feature some of the state's best soloists, choruses and ensembles, including two brass quintets and an opera company. For those who want to do more than listen, several of the concerts have sing-along sections — and there are two more Messiah sing-alongs, with Middlebury Community Music Center and Upper Valley Music Center, on Sunday, December 17. As choral conductor Dawn Willis laments, "There are so many concerts and so few weekends left!"
One of the finest pianos in Vermont is the Steinway Model D concert grand at the Double E, a former movie theater at the Essex Experience. And one of the state's most accomplished piano trios is Champlain Trio, featuring pianist Hiromi Fukuda, violinist Letitia Quante and cellist Emily Taubl. The two entities will unite for a one-night-only, crowd-pleasing Candlelight Concert on Saturday, December 16.
Aiming for a mood of holiday magic, the trio will perform among throngs of candles onstage — fake ones, for safety — while festive winter scenes and vintage cartoon clips play on the big screen in the background.
The program of piano trios, arranged in some cases by the musicians, is designed to appeal to audiences of all ages. It ranges from "O Holy Night" and "Carol of the Bells" to pop-culture touchstones such as "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." Familiar classical standards include Johann Sebastian Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" and selections from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.
And, Taubl noted, "the bar will be open, the seats are comfortable, and it's at a family-friendly time" — five o'clock.
A disabled boy named Amahl and his mother find themselves the poverty-stricken hosts of a trio of traveling kings, who knock on the door one night under the light of a giant star. That's the setup of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, a one-act opera in English composed in 1951.
Brandon's Barn Opera has been staging the touching Christmas story at the Salisbury Congregational Church since 2019. This year, company founder-director Joshua Collier is finally bringing it to Chittenden County, as well — "sets, costumes, the whole thing," he said — for two performances at the Williston Federated Church.
With piano accompaniment by Kristen Carr of Brandon, the production will feature eminent Vermont soprano Helen Lyons as Amahl's mother. Lyons, of Ferrisburgh, is a classical music host and the music manager at Vermont Public. Amahl will be sung by Ambrose Cusick, a 17-year-old senior at Burlington High School and veteran of the Vermont Youth Opera program. Collier and his Barn Opera colleagues Cailin Marcel Manson (music director) and Nicholas Tocci (associate director) will sing the Three Kings.
No holiday season is complete without a Messiah, and L'Harmonie des saisons' historically informed version with period instruments and expert singing is the one to see. This year, the award-winning ensemble, from the Eastern Townships near Montréal, will be joined by the Vermont Choral Union, a 56-year-old Burlington institution.
The border-crossing cofounder and music director of L'Harmonie, Eric Milnes, also conducts the Choral Union and the choir of the College Street Congregational Church. He brought L'Harmonie to Burlington last year to join singers from the Congregational choir for two sold-out performances of George Frideric Handel's 1741 masterwork. This time, Milnes said of the Choral Union, "It's their turn."
The Canadian soloists include countertenor Nicholas Burns and audience favorite William Kraushaar, a bass singer and composer known for his deep, expressive voice and signature man bun. Among the musicians, L'Harmonie cofounder and artistic director Mélisande Corriveau will play a cello made in 1700 while Milnes, her partner, leads from the harpsichord.
There's nothing like the wall of sound a brass quintet can produce — or, for that matter, the harmonies of a professional a cappella choir. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra's brass quintet has long collaborated with Counterpoint, a group of 13 singers, for holiday concerts around the state. Quintet leader Shelagh Abate, the horn player, has performed in them for 23 years; Counterpoint artistic director Nat Lew has sung in or conducted them for 19.
This year's "potpourri" of a program, as Lew described it, encompasses church carols, such as the jointly performed opener, "Good King Wenceslas," and pop tunes including Counterpoint's "Santa Baby" and the quintet's "Frosty the Snowman."
The program's centerpiece is a premiere of Saxtons River composer Carol Wood's "The Christmas Truce," for combined chorus and brass quintet. The new work "seems really timely right now," Lew noted: "It's about war coming to a halt for a day" in 1914.
The brass quintet will also premiere a composition by a Vermont student in the extraordinary Music-COMP program, as it does every year. This year's, called "Entering the Ice Palace," is by Leela McCann, 15, from the U-32 school district in East Montpelier.
As for the musicians' holiday spirit, Abate gave fair warning: "We are fans of Christmas schlock, you know — flashing lights, sparkling shoes."
Counterpoint also presents its own, free holiday concert with the Saint Michael's College Singers on Wednesday, December 13, 7:30 p.m., at the McCarthy Arts Center in Colchester.
Looking for a holiday concert of carol singing? "Rejoice!" by Solaris, the chorus founded by Dawn Willis 10 years ago, might be the closest bet, though the concerts will offer a lot more than caroling.
"Angels We Have Heard on High" and "I Saw Three Ships" bookend the program; "Deck the Halls" will be "jazzy" and "so much fun," Willis said. Franz Biebl's beautiful 1964 "Ave Maria" will feature a trio of soloists in the balcony. Guest artists include Evolution Brass Quintet (formerly InoraBrass) and piano accompanist Bethany Blake, a University of Vermont music lecturer, on the organ.
Willis, who also founded and directs Chittenden County's only women's choir, Bella Voce, always finds the right balance of energetic and lyrical works. In the latter category is Francis Poulenc's serene O Magnum Mysterium, one of four Christmas motets he composed in the early 1950s. The Frenchman is something of a Willis specialty: She has been invited to conduct more Poulenc at New York City's Carnegie Hall in 2025.
Poulenc's O Magnum Mysterium also comes to life at Mad River Chorale's "Peace on Earth!" concerts. Conductor Mary Jane Austin doesn't shy away from setting high standards for the non-auditioned community chorus.
"I like the fact that the pieces are challenging and require a lot of work," she said. "And [the singers] work hard."
One highlight of the program is English composer Gerald Finzi's 1954 In Terra Pax, a 15-minute atmospheric piece that sets to soaring melodies a poem about Christmas bells. Piano accompanist Alison Cerutti's daughter Emma Cerutti will sing the angel, a soprano solo, with baritone Cole Marino singing the poet's lines. Rebecca Kauffman on harp and a string quintet round out the instrumentation.
A work in German by Dieterich Buxtehude might be difficult to join in on, but audiences can sing along to Bob Chilcott's familiar carols in "On Christmas Night" and finish off by belting out the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah.
The Vermont Symphony Orchestra chooses a different soloist every year for its holiday bash, giving each a distinctive flavor. This year it's Myra Flynn, an indie-soul singer with a knockout voice. Vermonters might recognize her voice from her Vermont Public show "Homegoings: A Righteous Space for Art and Race."
Flynn spent eight years in the Los Angeles music industry before becoming host and executive producer of the radio show in 2021. But she was raised in West Brookfield and attended Randolph Union High School. She'll sing her own composition, "Mama Song," orchestrated by the VSO, as well as Joni Mitchell's breakup-song-turned-holiday-favorite, "River," among other works.
VSO music director Andrew Crust will conduct three movements of Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite as well as "Winter" from Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The final carol sing-along, noted executive director Elise Brunelle, is "your only chance in Vermont to sing carols with a full orchestra."
The original print version of this article was headlined "Joy to the Ear | Seven holiday concerts spread cheer around the state"
Tags: Performing Arts, Classical Music, Holiday Concert, Champlain Trio, Barn Opera, Vermont Choral Union, L’Harmonie des saisons, Vermont Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet, Counterpoint, Solaris Vocal Ensemble, Mad River Chorale, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Myra Flynn
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