Three days of events celebrating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach will bring together the town and the College.

Peter Hamlin, Class of 1973 and chair of the Music Department at Middlebury, served as on-air host and interviewer for live television broadcasts of the Quad City Symphony and Dubuque Symphony on Iowa Public Television (fall, 2008).

Hamilin also was the emcee for the Vermont Symphony's youth concerts, performing in five different school locations throughout the state (spring 2009). The program included three movements from an orchestra piece of Hamlin's called Green Mountain Variations.

Larry Hamberlin had an essay included in a book of Schubert studies published by Ashgate Press in the fall.

In the spring, Hamberlin presented papers at the Experience Music Project's pop music conference in Seattle and at the conference Feminist Music and Theory in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

Alison Maggart, Class of 2008, has been working as harpist with and assistant to the renowned Indian film composer A.R. Rahman. Rahman is known as the "John Williams of India" -- with "Slumdog Millionaire" just one of the recent films for which he has composed music. Maggart's duties include orchestrating, arranging and preparing Rahman's scores for his films.

The College Choir embarked on a highly successful tour of Connecticut, Boston and New York City over spring break, April 21-26, 2009. The tour included concerts at the phenomenal Trinity Church in the City of Boston, St. Michael's Church on 99th Street in Manhattan, and the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Central Park. The choir sang contemporary choral music, madrigals, and folk music, and a short choral drama featured several Middlebury student soloists.

The Sound Investment Jazz Ensemble completed its third full year under Dick Forman’s direction, and its second year as a Music Department performance ensemble. Twenty one students participated. The band offered five performances this year, including a town-gown dance at the Town Hall Theater in April.

Fifteen students performed in the Spring Jazz Showcase. Combos that formed in the Jazz Workshop performed regularly at the Grille, and occasionally at 51 Main.

Andrew Throdahl, Class of 2009, studied piano with Music Department affiliate artist Diana Fanning, an internationally renowned musician. Throdahl has played the piano for more than a dozen years, and recently gave his senior recital in the Mahaney Center for the Arts Concert Hall. He has a special perspective on playing in Concert Hall, having worked as page-turner for many of the chamber musicians who visit as part of Middlebury’s Performing Arts Series.

Middlebury's Stuck in the Middle men's a cappella group traveled to Japan this spring. They sang at a number of Japanese schools as part of a tour of Tokyo. You'll find stories and photos about the trip on the SIMnews blog.

One of the ways that town and gown come together in Middlebury is through the 100-member College Community Chorus, headed up by Jeff Rehbach, who works in LIS. On Tuesday and Sunday evenings during the fall and spring semesters, a couple of dozen students -- some who love singing, others singing in a choir for the first time -- join folks from throughout the greater Addison County area (including College staff and alumni) to share in the experience of making music together.

During her sabbatical leave in Germany during 2008-09, Bettina Matthias (German) researched and wrote a German textbook for opera singers and musicians. Having taught in the "German for Singers and Vocal Coaches" program in the German Summer Language School since 2000, she decided to dedicate her sabbatical to writing a much-needed book that takes into account this special group's needs, abilities, interests and professional realities.

Matching a crinkly, crimson tube top and glittery skirt to her auburn-tinted- brunette, shoulder-length hair and ruby lipstick, Anaïs Mitchell ’04 looks bewitching on stage, part siren and part waif; only her ice blue eyes offset the fiery red. She strums her acoustic guitar as the sold-out crowd at Club Passim, the legendary folk haunt in Cambridge, Massachusetts, nods along in appreciation. And then we hear her voice, a light, fresh thing, and a jolt of energy shoots through the room. This, this is something new.

The College Choir tour program is a collection of exciting, dramatic, though-provoking and fun music for a cappella chorus. Exquisite madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi and Thomas Morely are coupled with the tempestuous and playful French choruses from “The Lark,” by Leonard Bernstein. An ensemble committed to understanding between people of different cultures, College Choir sings sentimental, humorous, spiritual and celebratory music from folk traditions of the Americas, Europe and the Far East.

On Saturday, Feb. 21, a daylong series of one-hour workshops culminating in an evening concert will be presented by Philip Hamilton and members of the internationally-touring a cappella groups Cadence and Duwende at Middlebury College. The evening performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. at Mead Chapel, located on Hepburn Road off College Street (Route 125). Tickets to the evening concert are $10 general admission, $8 for seniors and children; and $5 for Middlebury College students.