Sunday, January 25, 3 pm, Latchis Theatre, Main Street, Brattleboro, VT

LISTEN LOCAL
Celebrating Local Composers & Musicians

On Sunday, January 25th at 3 pm, the Windham Orchestra, under the direction of David Runnion, will present its second annual Listen Local concert featuring works by local composers, at the Latchis Theatre in downtown Brattleboro.

Building on the success of last year’s Listen Local concert, the Windham Orchestra will again celebrates the richness of musical talent in our region performing pieces by local composers Steven Bathory-Peeler, Eugene Friesen, Zeke Hecker, Miamon Miller, and David Tasgal; and featuring the Brattleboro Music Center’s three student orchestras and local Grammy award-winning cellist Eugene Friesen.

Listen Local is the second concert in the Windham Orchestra’s Moscow, Munich, Madrid, Brattleboro! concert season featuring music from around the world and our own backyard.

 “The idea for the season is somewhat whimsical, based on a t-shirt that you can see in stores downtown, where it says "Paris, London, Tokyo, Brattleboro!" explains Director David Runnion. “That always struck me funny, but the fact is, there exists right in our community the class of artists that perform in halls all over the world. So we adapted the slogan a little, and the Listen Local concert represents the "Brattleboro" part of our season.”

Among the highlights of the Listen Local concert will be the performance of a new composition by David Tasgal, Overture for the New America, featuring the BMC’s Prima, Junior and Senior Orchestras comprised of Music School students ranging in age from 8 to 80, some with as little as 4 months instruction and others with a lifetime of experience, who will all be playing alongside the Windham Orchestra.

"In Venezuela, there is a system of music education that has put musical instruments in the hands of children all over the country, with an established hierarchy of youth and training orchestras, all with the idea of feeding into the country's professional orchestras and opera houses. Now some of the best musicians in the world are coming from Venezuela, and there is a vibrant culture of classical music throughout that country”, explains Runnion.

“Some of us in the community have been chatting about this for some time, and last year when I went to the BMC orchestras' concert at the River Garden, I was enormously impressed with the quality and sheer number of string students that are emerging in our community. David Tasgal wrote a multilevel piece for that concert, and I thought how fun it would be to ask him to write one that would bring all these wonderful young and amateur string players together with the Windham Orchestra. We'll hear the results of that at this concert."

David Tasgal, with a Masters of Music from the University of Massachusetts, has been on the Music School Faculty, teaching and directing string orchestras, at the BMC since 1982.  He has produced numerous compositions for student performers, including a piano concerto commissioned by the Massachusetts Music Teachers Association, and a string quartet commissioned by Douglas Cox.  He is also the author of The Family String Method, an aural approach based on original compositions that is in widespread use across the country.  

Tasgal’s Overture for the New America is sure to uplift as the student orchestras take the stage with the Windham Orchestra. “Following in the bombastic tradition of Wellington's Victory and The 1812 Overture, Overture for the New America celebrates our hope that the inauguration of President Obama five days before the concert will usher in a new and brighter future for our country,” says Tasgal.

Another highlight of Sunday’s Listen Local concert will be the performance of Eugene Friesen’s Creatures Great, Creatures Small featuring the composer as cello soloist.

"One outstanding example of the international talent that we have in our midst is cellist/composer/teacher/musical inventor Eugene Friesen, who, when he's not teaching at Berklee College or performing world-wide with the Paul Winter Consort, relaxes at home just off Western Avenue right here in 05301. We met in Maple Leaf Music. I'm utterly thrilled that he'll be joining us, said Runnion. “This is a Grammy-winning world-class musician, and his music is gorgeous. The piece features Friesen in dialogue with recordings of whales and bird calls, as the string players of the Windham Orchestra and the BMC Senior Orchestra accompany his improvisations."

A graduate of the Yale School of Music where he studied with Brazilian cellist Aldo Parisot, Eugene Friesen is active internationally as a concert artist, composer, conductor and teacher. In 1995 and in 2006 Eugene won a Grammy Award for musical contributions to two Paul Winter Consort albums, “Spanish Angel” and “Silver Solstice.” He has worked and recorded with such diverse artists as Dave Brubeck, Toots Thielemans, Betty Buckley, Will Ackerman, Joe Lovano and Dream Theater.

Director David Runnion also brings back a personal favorite for this year’s Listen Local program with Zeke Hecker’s Guilford Festival Overture. "I'm a strong believer in second performances of things. I also like to focus a spotlight on the composers and music right in our midst. Zeke Hecker's piece, Guilford Festival Overture, is right from our 05301 zip code. It was performed at the Friends of Music at Guilford's Labor Day Festival some years ago; I played in the orchestra and loved the piece and thought about how it should be performed a second time someday. Here we are.”

Zeke Hecker lives in Guilford, Vermont, and taught English at Brattleboro Union High School from 1971 until his retirement in 2004.   A coordinator of the Met School Membership Program, he writes online study guides for the Metropolitan Opera website and leads teacher workshops at the Met.  He is co-principal oboist of the Pioneer Valley Symphony and the Windham Orchestra, co-founder of Friends of Music at Guilford, and a former director of the Consortium of Vermont Composers.  Hecker has composed over 130 works including operas, orchestral pieces, chamber and choral music, incidental music for plays and films, and songs. Orchestras, chamber groups, and choruses in New England, Barcelona and London have performed his music.

Also to be performed will be Miamon Miller’s Mazyk. “Miamon Miller's piece was a huge hit at last year's Listen Local concert so we're presenting another entertaining work by this first-class musician”, says Runnion. “It's filled with Miamon's ethnic passion, and features our violinist Phil Bloch on mandolin.”

“Mazyk”, explains Miller, “utilizes structural and stylistic elements typical to Eastern European klezmer music.  Originally conceived as a quartet (violin, clarinet, piano and bass), Mazyk pits strong musical personalities- in this orchestration, violins vs. winds- against one another.   Although initially deferential, they soon vie for primacy to the extent that saner members of the ensemble must bring order out of chaos. This is the first performance of the orchestration.”

Miamon Miller recently moved to Vermont from Los Angeles, California, where he worked professionally for nearly 40 years, playing on numerous recordings, films, television and commercial soundtracks.  With a B.A. in composition and an M.A. in ethnomusicology (both from UCLA), he has combined academic and professional interests. A specialist in East European folk music, Miamon has made many trips to Romania, including a 10-month stay on a Fulbright scholarship.  In Los Angeles, he was with the Aman Folk Ensemble and Bucovina Klezmer ensemble. As a composer and arranger, he has many film and television credits.

The Listen Local concert will also encore Steven Bathory-Peeler's enchanting Film Score for an Unmade Film, which was commissioned by the Windham Orchestra in 2004 and, as Runnion said, “deserved another hearing”. “It's a gorgeously crafted work, which invites the audience to imagine the plot of a film that might be made with this music as its soundtrack. We'll read a couple of the best synopses sometime during the second half.”

“Over the years many people have told me that my music seems suited to film scoring. This idea has always interested to me,” says Bathory-Peeler.  “So, in 2004 when I was approached by Zon Eastes, the former music director of the Windham Orchestra, to write a piece for the orchestra I decided it was time to write a film score without the film.  Film Score to an Unmade Film is written in five movements, each movement suggesting a certain mood that might accompany a film script.  Audience members are encouraged to let their minds wander while listening to the music imagining a movie of their own making.”

Steven Bathory-Peeler has written a wide variety of concert music ranging from solo pieces to large-scale works for orchestra.  He is active as both a composer and conductor. Originally from Norwich, VT, Mr. Bathory-Peeler's music has been heard throughout New England.   Bathory-Peeler's largest work to date, Chamber Symphony, will be premiered on March 29th, at the Northfield Mount Hermon School by a professional chamber ensemble under the composer's baton. Bathory-Peeler recently received his doctorate in composition at the Hartt School and lives in Gill, Massachusetts with his wife, Megan, and two children, Ella and Quinn.

Zeke Hecker, Miamon Miller and David Tasgal, musicians as well as composers, will be among the Windham Orchestra musicians playing on stage during the Listen Local concert.

Immediately following the concert there will be a reception at Windham Wines, on Main Street, right next door to the Latchis Theatre. Concert goers are invited to meet the composers, mingle with the musicians and enjoy appetizers. Beer and wine will be available for purchase.

Tickets $15, $10 students available at the Brattleboro Music Center (802-257-4523) or on-line at brattleborotix. Advance purchase senior discount tickets, $6, available at the Senior Center, BMC and through Windham Orchestra members prior to performance date.

Visit windhamorchestra.net for more information on the orchestra.