Performing Arts Series

Middlebury is honored to present the New England premiere of A Standing Witness,* written by Grammy-winning composer Richard Danielpour and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. Performed by acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble and “America’s favorite mezzo” Susan Graham (Gramophone), this cycle of 13 songs is a sweeping retrospective on pivotal historical events and moments in the U.S. over the past half-century. This series of musical snapshots traces the trajectory of American civilization since 1968, and invites us to bring forth what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” The program also includes works by Pierre Jalbert and John Harbison. 
 
Part One of the work begins in 1968—a watershed year of political, societal, and cultural turmoil that saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, the climax of the Vietnam War, and the violence at the Democratic National Convention. Part Two revisits the moon landing, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, the Watergate scandal and collapse of the Nixon Presidency, and the end of the Vietnam War. Part Three journeys through recent decades, from the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and to the cataclysm of 9/11, the seminal advent of America’s first African American president, and the political upheavals of in recent years.  

This live, in-person event is open to on- and off-campus audiences.

NEW! Pre-concert screening at 6:00 PM in MAC Room 125: “A Standing Witness: Artistic Discussion with Rita Dove, Richard Danielpour, and members of Music from Copland House,” a pre-recorded conversation from our friends at UChicago Presents. (1 hour)

 
Vaccinations and masks required. Additional health and safety information here. Performance subject to change. 
 
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TICKETS

General Admission Tickets: 
$25 General public | $20 Middlebury ID-holders | $10 Youth (Under 21) | $5 Middlebury students 

This is exclusively a live, in-person performance.

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This event is additionally made possible with generous support from Olin C. Robison.  
 
*The Middlebury Performing Arts Series co-commissioned Danielpour and Dove’s work through its membership in the national consortium Music Accord. 
 
“Excellent musicians in vital performances…[Aaron] Copland would have been proud of all of them.”—The Chicago Tribune 
 
“Susan Graham was in top form… Her gorgeous mezzo timbre and marvelous technique shone…”—Opera News 

At just 20 years old, jazz keyboardist Matthew Whitaker is a once-in-a-generation musical talent. He’s been performing across the globe since age eleven, opening for Stevie Wonder at the Apollo Theater. At a tender 13, Whitaker was the youngest artist to be endorsed by Hammond organs and was soon named a Yamaha Artist, becoming the youngest musician to join their stellar roster of jazz pianists. Also an acclaimed composer, Whitaker won the ASCAP Foundation’s Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Award in 2019 and 2020, and it’s this depth of talent that draws audiences in when Whitaker and his talented bandmates command the stage. 

Whitaker will be joined by guitarist Marcos Robertson, bassist Karim Hutton, and John Steele on drums.

This live, in-person event is open to on- and off-campus audiences.
 
Vaccinations and masks required. Additional health and safety information here. Performance subject to change. 

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TICKETS

General Admission Tickets: (includes live performance and access to performance stream)
$25 General public | $20 Middlebury ID-holders | $10 Youth (Under 21) | $5 Middlebury students 

Streaming-only Tickets: $15 | $5 Middlebury students
Access to the live stream during the concert only, starting November 6 at 7:30 PM.

About streaming and sound: This fall’s streams are meant to capture the “sound in the room” without post-production sound editing. Bear in mind the sound quality will not compare to a studio recording.
 
Streaming ticket purchasing is only available until the start of the live performance.

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“A blind jazz piano prodigy is taking the world by storm—so much so that scientists are studying his brain to figure out how he’s able to master those talents.”—People 
 

Alumni of the Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Schumann Quartet has been lauded as “one of the most exciting string quartets of the present day” by Fono Forum. Named BBC Music Magazine’s 2016 Best Newcomers of the Year, they make their Middlebury debut with a program including Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A Minor and Ravel’s Quartet in F Major. The second half of the evening finds the quartet collaborating with acclaimed Vermont pianist and Middlebury Affiliate Artist Diana Fanning in Schumann’s Quintet in E-flat Major. 
 
Pre-concert lecture by Professor of Music Larry Hamberlin, 6:30 PM, Room 125.  

This live, in-person event is open to on- and off-campus audiences.
 
Vaccinations and masks required. Additional health and safety information here. Performance subject to change. 

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TICKETS

General Admission Tickets: (includes live performance and access to performance stream)
$25 General public | $20 Middlebury ID-holders | $10 Youth (Under 21) | $5 Middlebury students 

Streaming-only Tickets: $15 | $5 Middlebury students
48-hour access to the performance stream, starting November 11 at 7:30 PM.

About streaming and sound: This fall’s streams are meant to capture the “sound in the room” without post-production sound editing. Bear in mind the sound quality will not compare to a studio recording.
 
Streaming ticket purchasing is only available until the start of the live performance.

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About the Quartet: The three brothers Mark, Erik, and Ken Schumann have been playing music together since their early childhood. In 2012, they were joined by violist Liisa Randalu, who was born in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, and grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany. The four musicians enjoy the way they communicate without words—how a single look suffices to convey how a particular member wants to play a certain passage. The quartet has studied with Eberhard Feltz and the Alban Berg Quartet, and collaborated with partners such as Sabine Meyer and Menahem Pressler. 
 
About the pianist: Diana Fanning is an internationally renowned musician who happens to make her home in Middlebury. She has toured extensively as a solo performer and chamber musician throughout the U.S. and in England, France, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, the Czech Republic, Canada, and Germany. As a chamber musician, Fanning has been a guest artist with the Takacs, the Jupiter, and the Alexander String Quartets, and with ensembles from Point Counter Point Music Camp, which she owned and directed for ten years with her husband Emory Fanning. With appearances with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Public Television, and “Morning Pro Musica” (WGBH-FM) Boston and on WNYC in New York City, she is well-known to regional audiences. She continues to teach as an Affiliate Artist with Middlebury College’s music department. 
 
“With no ifs or buts, the Schumanns are among the best quartets in the world”—Süddeutsche Zeitung 
 
“Diana Fanning stunned her listeners with the rich spectrum of subtle colors and tonal nuances she revealed. Her recital seized the audience with a veritable deep magic.”—Munich press 

Originally scheduled for April of 2020, the Imani Winds and Catalyst Quartet join forces for a special program entitled (im)migration: music of change. The highlight of the evening is the Vermont premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s new work for nine musicians, Sergeant McCauley,* which brings together spirituals and work songs that reflect her great-grandfather’s route from Mississippi through the West, north to the Dakotas, and eventually back to Georgia. 
 
The program also includes the Imani Winds playing an arrangement of Mongo Santamaría’s Afro Blue; the Catalyst Quartet with Florence B. Price’s Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint and both ensembles together for Roberto Sierra’s Concierto de Cámara.
 
Vaccinations and masks required. Additional health and safety information here. Performance subject to change. 

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TICKETS

This live event was free; no ticket required.

View the concert at home, or watch it again after seeing it live:
48-hour access to the performance stream expired September 26.

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This free event is made possible thanks to the Sunderman Family Concert Endowment Fund, in memory of Dr. F. William Sunderman Jr. and Dr. Carolyn Reynolds Sunderman.  
 
*The Middlebury Performing Arts Series co-commissioned Montgomery’s composition through its membership in the national consortium Music Accord, which commissioned the work in conjunction with the Sphinx Organization. 
 
“The [Imani Winds’] hot rapport churns with conviction throughout…”—Gramophone 
 
“Like all great chamber groups, the Catalyst Quartet is beautiful to watch, like a family in lively conversation at the dinner table: anticipating, interrupting, changing subjects.”—The New York Times 
 

Hailed as “one of the best young string quartets’’ by Gramophone, the Doric String Quartet has emerged as a leading British ensemble of its generation. The quartet had our audience on its feet during their 2017 Vermont debut, and their performance of Beethoven’s first and Bartók’s third quartets will most certainly evoke a similar reaction this season. This powerhouse evening concludes with Elgar’s Piano Quintet in A Major, with acclaimed pianist Jonathan Biss, who has served as the Marlboro Music Festival’s co-artistic director in recent years.  
 
Pre-concert lecture by Professor of Music Larry Hamberlin, 6:30 PM, Room 125.  

This live, in-person event is open to on- and off-campus audiences.
 
Vaccinations and masks required. Additional health and safety information here. Performance subject to change. 
 
············································

TICKETS

General Admission Tickets: (includes live performance and access to performance stream)
$25 General public | $20 Middlebury ID-holders | $10 Youth (Under 21) | $5 Middlebury students 

Streaming-only Tickets: $15 | $5 Middlebury students
48-hour access to the performance stream expired October 11.

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“Doric String Quartet led a spellbinding series of concerts, rich in variety, impeccable in execution.”—The Guardian 
 
“Beethoven’s personal life may have been short on joy, but listening to Jonathan Biss leaves one feeling grateful that he was able to discover it in composing.”—BBC Music Magazine