Music

The winner of the 1990 Tony Award for Best Musical, as well as Best Book and Best Score, City of Angels is the latest in the popular tradition of winterterm productions coproduced by the Department of Music and Town Hall Theater. This musical comedy is written in the contempoary jazz idiom, but also teems with sidesplitting humor. Douglas Anderson directs, with affiliate artist Carol Christensen as music director. Presented by special arrangement with Tims-Witmark Inc. Tickets $16/10/6; on sale January 9.

The winner of the 1990 Tony Award for Best Musical, as well as Best Book and Best Score, City of Angels is the latest in the popular tradition of winterterm productions coproduced by the Department of Music and Town Hall Theater. This musical comedy is written in the contempoary jazz idiom, but also teems with sidesplitting humor. Douglas Anderson directs, with affiliate artist Carol Christensen as music director. Presented by special arrangement with Tims-Witmark Inc. Tickets $16/10/6; on sale January 9.

Award-winning composer Christina Whitten Thomas ’01.5 will discuss her recent music, including a new choral suite, commissioned by the Vermont Choral Union, incorporating texts by Vermont-based writer Abigail Carroll, 1950s Waterbury poet Jean Killary, and Middlebury faculty member Jay Parini.

Sponsored by the Department of Music

The College Choir performs a brief concert of new compositions of written for the choir. Music by students, alumni, and faculty includes recent works by Peter Hamlin ’73, Annie Beliveau ’18 and Tevan Goldberg ’18. The program also includes a commissioned work by Mohammed Fairouz (b. 1985), whose music is increasingly popular with major symphony orchestras and choirs. Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

The choir presents global choral music including 21st-century compositions from Western and non-Western musical traditions. Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

Under the baton of guest conductor, Matthew LaRocca ‘02, the Champlain Philharmonic presents an evening of music of the great Russian masters. Featuring Middlebury College student Gareth Cordery ‘20, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The program also includes works by Prokofiev and Borodin. Tickets: $15/10/5

Artist-in-Residence Gabriel Forestieri and collaborators Loren Dempster and Adrian Jevicki transform Middlebury’s natatorium into a multidisciplinary performance venue. The project combines light, puppetry, projections, swimmers, divers, dancers, actors, musicians, and singers. A live feed of underwater dancing displays to the board above the pool, while projections light the surface and floor. A floating choir mixes with a soundscape composed directly from the space itself, using contact microphones both out of and in the pool.

Artist-in-Residence Gabriel Forestieri and collaborators Loren Dempster and Adrian Jevicki transform Middlebury’s natatorium into a multidisciplinary performance venue. The project combines light, puppetry, projections, swimmers, divers, dancers, actors, musicians, and singers. A live feed of underwater dancing displays to the board above the pool, while projections light the surface and floor. A floating choir mixes with a soundscape composed directly from the space itself, using contact microphones both out of and in the pool.

The Middlebury Bach Festival presents G. F. Handel’s oratorio, “Esther,” featuring Middlebury alumni soloists, student and guest singers and orchestra. The first English oratorio, the work is a charming and dramatic piece originally writtend for the English audience of the early 18th century. The libretto is based loosely on Jean Racine’s 1689 play, which is loosely based on the Book of Esther. It is the story of a young Jewish woman who becomes the wife of a king and risks her life to save the Jewish race from genocide.

The Middlebury Bach Choir and Festival Orchestra perform under the direction of Jeffrey Buettner. Tickets $12 Public/$10 Middlebury ID holders; Middlebury College students free with ID.