Performing Arts Series

Choral Chameleon treats our audience to an outside-the-box concert experience! Listeners will move through the Mahaney Arts Center lobbies to hear “I AM,” a world premiere, large scale choral installation written just for Middlebury by Choral Chameleon’s Founder and Artistic Director Vince Peterson. Imagine being guided through choral vignettes around the building, much as you would move through exhibits in a gallery. Featuring singers drawn from the Middlebury student body and the greater community, coordinated by Ronnie Romano ’20, performing alongside the professional ensemble.

Professors Claudio Medeiros (Theatre) and Jerry Philogene (Black Studies) will lead a cozy book club session about August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. Refreshments provided. This event is a lead-up to the production at Wright Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 13, performed by The Acting Company and presented by the Middlebury Performing Arts Series.

NOTE: Sign-up for this event is now closed as capacity for attendance has been reached.

Play by August Wilson, performed by The Acting Company, directed by Lili-Anne Brown. From the writer of The Piano Lesson, Fences, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom comes the story of Memphis Lee, a diner owner in Pittsburgh in 1969 who must decide if he should allow the government to take over his building or sell the property to a ruthless businessman.

Learn more about this concert’s music in a free pre-concert lecture by Professor Emeritus of Music Larry Hamberlin.

Acclaimed Jordanian-Palestinian pianist Iyad Sughayer embodies a captivating blend of exceptional skill and profound musicality. A prize-winner with the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions, he was named a ClassicFM Rising Star Artist, and “One to Watch” by International Piano Magazine. His performances traverse the gamut of classical repertoire with spellbinding precision and emotive depth, captivating audiences worldwide.

Making their Middlebury debut, the Isidore String Quartet are winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition. Their concert program “Unrequited” explores the intersection of treasured classics and contemporary perspectives, providing a winding path into the complicated labyrinth that is human compassion and love, featuring works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Billy Childs. Thanks to the Sunderman Family Concert Endowment Fund, this concert is free and open to all.

Pianist Steven Osborne, OBE is one of Britain’s most treasured musicians. His performances exude an immense depth of musicality and exceptional refinement of expression across diverse repertoire, be it in Beethoven or Messiaen, Schubert or Ravel, Prokofiev, or jazz improvisations. His many honors include The Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two BBC Music Magazine Awards, and two Gramophone Awards.

Learn more about this concert’s music in a free pre-concert lecture by Professor Emeritus of Music Larry Hamberlin.

We close our 105th season with the dynamic duo of violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien. The two developed a tremendous rapport during their term as individual BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, where their unique partnership was observed by The Times of London: “Both of these players have the potential to conquer the world.” During this Middlebury return, Ibragimova and Tiberghien will play Janácek, Enescu, Gerald Barry’s vivacious Triorchic Blues, and Beethoven’s iconic “Kreutzer” sonata.

Choral Chameleon is a dynamic ensemble renowned for their innovative programming and fearless exploration of vocal artistry. Audiences have clamored for their return ever since their choral sound bath event and their concert at Middlebury in 2022. Now Choral Chameleon returns with CONTROL, a program exploring the timeless and complex relationship between parents and children and the eternal push and pull between generations, bound by love yet separated by perspective.

Join us for the Vermont premiere of Sky Was Possible, a song cycle for soprano, flute, and piano composed by Middlebury’s own Fletcher Professor of the Arts and Music Department Chair Su Lian Tan, with texts by Middlebury President and Professor of Religion Laurie Patton. Sky Was Possible consists of four poems from Patton’s books Fire’s Goal: Poems from a Hindu Year and House Crossing, taking us on a journey through love, love lost, and love passing. Soprano Kristen Watson and pianist John McDonald will start the evening with J.S.

New York based, Canadian born musician Bria Skonberg stormed onto the jazz scene with her smoky vocals, blistering trumpet, and compelling compositions and arrangements. She’s been described as one of the “most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation” by the Wall Street Journal. Skonberg sold out our hall almost a decade ago, and returns to Middlebury just in time for the holidays with a new program entitled “Jingle Bell Swing,” featuring her take on seasonal favorites including her hit cover of “All I Want For Christmas is You.”