|
|
The Vermont Composers Initiative - Our Experiences in 2005 and 2006
|
We began setting up collarborative experiences between live composers and students in 2005, when Erik Nielsen was commissioned by the Rochester Chamber Music Society with the support of the Foundation for Clinical Science and Art, to write "3x3", a piece for violin, cello and piano.
|
 |
 |
Student musicians, Estlin Usher (violin), Brianna Wood-Dunbar (cello), and Tim Woos (piano), were selected to rehearse and perform the work. The students came to the institute with their parts mastered, and rehearsed with head coach, Jim Breckenridge, string coach, Dan Santelices, and the composer each day of the institute. |
| Students often have a hard time with contemporary music, They don't hear it often, study it rarely, and perform it even less frequently. Being able to establish a collaborative relationship with the composer and with the motivation of being the performers who would give the work its world premiere, the students rehearsed with focus and passion. The results were remarkable -- a wonderful piece, played by the students to a standing ovation at the institute's final concert.
|
 |
|
|
In 2006, GMSI director, Jody Woos, expanded the program to include works by both a student composer and a professional composer.
Troy Peters, Musical Director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association, Conductor of the Vermont Youth Orchestra and of the Middlebury College Orchestra, and noted composer, agreed to write a piece to be premiered at the 2006 institute.
|
 |
 |
| "Summer Idyll" was inspired, as Mr Peter told us at the concert, both by Brahms and by the aura of a summer excursion on Route 100 as it winds its way along the White River heading toward Rochester. The piece was rehearsed at the institute by Lily Roberts-Gevalt (violin), Matthew Goff (cello), and Mitchell Goff (piano), working with head coach, Cynthia Huard, string coaches Anne Brown and Alison Eldredge, and the composer. In addition to scheduled rehearsals, the students met independently a number of times during the week to work on the ensemble aspects of the piece, reviewing difficult passages. Younger players than those who had performed the year before, this trio demonstrated their desire over and over during the week to master this new work and give it an exemplary performance. The young performers held the audience spellbound as they gave the piece its world premiere. |
| In 2006, we had our first work by a student composer, Tim Woos. Working with the Vermont MIDI project and mentored by Erik Nielsen, Tim composed "Travel by My Dragonfly." The piece was rehearsed during the week of the institute by Roseanna Hopper (violin), Sylvia Stevens-Goodnight (cello) and Sarabeth Hamberlin (piano), and coached by Jim Breckenridge and the composer. The piece was premiered to an extremely enthusiastic audience at our final concert. |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
