It was one of those “It’s right under your nose” moments for Jay Wahl. The executive director of the Flynn was talking with new hire Matt Rogers about the recent mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub when he realized how valuable his new director of programming’s voice would be at the nonprofit arts organization.
“We were talking about what communities the Flynn does and doesn’t always serve,” said Wahl, who took the reins of the Burlington performing arts center in 2021. “After something like the murders in Colorado, I wanted to seek out my community. But there aren’t any gay bars in Burlington.”
To Wahl’s surprise, the solution came easily to Rogers.
“Why don’t we just make one?” he posited to Wahl.
“And he was exactly right,” Wahl recalled. “It’s our job to bring community together. It’s not about juggling different art forms or curating things; it’s us thinking about how can we meaningfully and authentically serve the community.”
So Wahl and Rogers decided to turn the center’s underground black box theater, the Flynn Space, into a gay bar for a night. They called the February 11 event Hot Butter and brought in local DJ Craig Mitchell.
It was an early example for Wahl of just what Rogers, with his deep roots in the community and the local indie music scene, can bring to the Flynn. And the two men’s shared, expansive view of the kind of events the state’s largest performing arts organization can offer may explain why Rogers’ title is director of programming, rather than artistic director, as his predecessors were known.
“Matt is going to be central to what the Flynn is and will become.” Jay Wahl
For Rogers, joining the Flynn represents a new chapter in a career that until now has been focused in a very different performance world. The 37-year-old Monkton resident cut his teeth as an independent promoter booking music shows at local venues such as Club Metronome and the Monkey House and later worked for Higher Ground booking large off-site shows. He joined some like-minded friends and fellow bookers to form Waking Windows, organizer of the popular Winooski indie music festival of the same name. As part of that collective, he helped bring the likes of indie rock darling Japanese Breakfast and grunge-era heroes Dinosaur Jr. to town.
Wahl’s hiring of Rogers in September raised some eyebrows. Though he is an experienced booker, Rogers lacks the background in the sorts of performances that traditionally make up the Flynn’s season — classical and modern dance, world music, theater, children’s shows.
“When you’ve been doing a job long enough and staying in the same lane, you’re ready to push yourself out of that comfort zone,” Rogers said, waving his hand to indicate his new downtown office. “Coming here and talking to agents who represent circuses and dance troupes, coming more in contact with the performing arts world, it’s been really incredible.”
Wahl doesn’t have any doubts about Rogers’ ability to make the transition: “I feel incredibly grateful to have him here now,” he said. “Matt is going to be central to what the Flynn is and will become.”
Though he’s now a father of two who has been working in the music industry for almost 20 years, Rogers still comes across like a younger man working in the world of adults — like seeing pro skater Tony Hawk at a PTA meeting. As he traced the roots of his career, he leaned back in his office chair with a cool, casual ease.
“I was always attracted to that world — I love live music,” said Rogers, who grew up in southern New Jersey and came to Vermont to attend Saint Michael’s College in Colchester.
While he was there, Rogers landed an internship at South Burlington music venue Higher Ground. It was low-level stuff, but the gig offered his first taste of a world he knew he wanted to be a part of. It also helped him to land a dream job in 2007, when the career office at St. Mike’s posted an opportunity to be a production assistant on James Taylor’s tour.
“It was the first time I saw how the whole thing really works,” Rogers said of his six years on the road with the legendary “Fire and Rain” singer-songwriter. While traipsing around the globe, Rogers saw it all, from the work of setting up the stage and lighting to how the accountant settled up after the show. Learning how the sausage is made often scares off initiates in the music business; for Rogers, it was like getting a road map to his preferred destination.
Buoyed by his apprenticeship, he decided to try his hand at booking his first show. It was 2009, and he had just caught the indie rock band Here We Go Magic play in Montréal. Rogers emailed the band afterward, asking to book it to play in Burlington.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” Rogers said, laughing as he recalled the experience. “I rented out Club Metronome and sent the contract to the band, but I couldn’t actually go to the show. I had to go out on tour with James Taylor.”
Rogers’ then-girlfriend, Whitney Leighton, now his wife, stepped in to cover for him by cutting the check and making the band dinner. Soon Rogers was booking acts ranging from indie rock up-and-comer Kurt Vile to former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Fred Armisen. He established his own booking agency, MSR Presents, and met like-minded local bookers. Those included Nick Mavodones and Paddy Reagan, who ran their own outfit, Angioplasty Media.
“We all have similar tastes, but back then, Matt seemed a little more bold than Nick and I,” Reagan said. He recalled when Rogers booked folk-rock band Dawes at the Monkey House in Winooski, “which seemed like such a big swing,” he said. The band was beginning to break out and seemed an unlikely target to land for the rookie bookers. “Nick and I would have been more nervous about that, I think.”
In 2011, MSR Presents and Angioplasty merged to form Waking Windows, along with the Monkey House’s Brian and Ali Nagle. The collective brings cutting-edge, underground indie acts to the area throughout the year, but its calling card is the annual music festival, which draws nearly 200 acts, and thousands of fans, to Winooski each May. Though this year, owing to a variety of life changes for its founders — including Rogers’ new gig — the festival will be significantly pared down. (For more on the future of Waking Windows, see Soundbites.)
After a three-year stint in Philadelphia at the nonprofit independent venue World Café Live, Rogers took a job in 2013 with Higher Ground Presents, the off-site arm of the South Burlington nightclub, which produces festivals such as Grace Potter’s Grand Point North in Burlington and Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Mass. It was organizing those events, and Rogers’ work with Waking Windows in particular, that brought him to mind when Wahl sought a successor to Flynn artistic director Steve MacQueen, who resigned in February 2022.
“Matt is someone who helped build a partnership with the town of Winooski in order to hold a music festival,” Wahl stated. “I don’t think people realize the kind of work that takes. Someone who thinks through those kind of processes — we knew we needed that at the Flynn.”
For Rogers, the diverse nature of the shows the Flynn brings to Burlington is the real draw.
“When you work at a place like Higher Ground, you can’t really take too many big risks with what you book,” he explained. “If the show tanks, you’re done.”
The mission of a nonprofit such as the Flynn, however, includes a commitment to varied, sometimes risky, programming — something Rogers said is both exciting and daunting.
“There are so many more moving parts here,” he said. “We have an education department, so I need to book stuff to engage busloads of kids, most of whom are about to have their first theater experience. There’s just so much more I need to be aware of when booking, like what purpose will this show serve for our audience?”
Though they both acknowledge the new challenges Rogers is facing, Wahl and Reagan are confident in his ability to adjust and thrive.
“No one at the Flynn is expected to be an expert in every art form,” Wahl pointed out. “That would be unrealistic. What I want to know about here is: Does he care about the artists? Does he care about the audiences? Is there honesty, authenticity and gravity? Does he understand how to build relationships? And yes, Matt does all of those things.”
Reagan, who is now the technical director at the University of Vermont Lane Series, is happy his Waking Windows partner is stepping into such a high-profile position.
“Oftentimes, it can be a whole generation until positions like this turn over,” he said. “I’m really excited to see Matt get this chance and to see what he does.”
Wahl noted that Rogers’ influence as director of programming won’t be fully felt until the shows for the 2023-24 season are announced. More immediately, Rogers will have a chance to show the community what he can do when the Flynn kicks off the 2023 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival this summer. Though he and Wahl were tight-lipped on the identity of this year’s guest curator and the lineup, their excitement for the annual 10-day music festival was clear.
“Getting my hands on jazz fest is going to be so cool,” Rogers enthused. “It’s the 40th anniversary too, so that’s huge right there. I’ve worked on basically every other local music festival in the last 15 years, so it feels like … finally.”
The late winter sun was setting outside Rogers’ office window as he stood up, giving a quick glance to the city outside.
“The fact that the Flynn were willing to bring someone like me on was really reassuring,” Rogers said. “It speaks a lot to where the Flynn wants to go — not necessarily cutting off from the past but developing and progressing.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “New Blood | Matt Rogers is in at the Flynn as the new director of programming. What does that mean for Burlington’s premier performing arts venue?”
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This article appears in Feb 15-21, 2023.
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