Music Director Lou Kosma and the Vermont Philharmonic, in partnership with the Green Mountain Youth Symphony, will present its annual family concert on Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. at the Barre Opera House. Titled “Awakenings,” the program will feature music by well-known composers when they were still very young, and will also include new music by two Vermont student composers. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, $5 for students and are available at the door or online at vermontphilharmonic.com.
When one hears Handel, or Mozart, or Mendelssohn, or John Phllip Sousa they don’t think “teenager”. But of course they were teenagers before they became the famous composers we know and love.
Handel was 19 when he wrote his first opera, “Almira”, as was Sousa when he wrote his first march, “Review.” Mendelssohn was 15 when he published his first symphony, and Mozart published his eighth symphony when he was only 12. George Bizet was the old man of the group, aged 25 when he wrote his opera “The Pearl Fishers.”
The program will also put the spotlight on two teen-aged Vermont composers in the Music-Comp program at Montpelier High School. The Vermont Philharmonic will perform Callum Robechek’s “And in a Moment” and Chase Ehrlich’s “Spirit of the Sky”. Robechek’s “Morning Fog” was on the program at the 2020 Family Concert, and Ehrlich won the Masterclef Competition in November 2021.
In addition, the program will feature young performers too, as the Green Mountain Youth Symphony will come on stage to perform music of Gustav Holst. Under the artistic direction of Robert Blais, the GMYS is a community of young musicians performing great music. Founded in 2001, it now serves over one hundred student musicians from central and northern Vermont and New Hampshire.
The GMYS musicians will join forces with the Vermont Philharmonic to conclude with the rousing finale from Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” complete with audience-engaged “cannon” fire.
Vermont’s oldest community orchestra, the Vermont Philharmonic has been making beautiful music in central Vermont since 1959.