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Performing Arts Series

Performing Arts Series PERFORMING ARTS SERIES

image of Dover Quartet on top and Haochen Zhang on bottom

Dover String Quartet; Haochen Zhang, Piano

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
The celebrated Dover String Quartet joins forces with award-winning Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang to bring us our next Music Accord co-commission: the Vermont premiere of Marc Neikrug’s Piano Quintet No. 2. Subtitled “In Six Parts,” Neikrug’s work is designed to highlight the virtuosity of each individual musician. Since our centennial season, commissioning new works is part of the Performing Arts Series’ mission to support the future of chamber music. The work is paired with Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34.

Performance subject to change.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

$25/20/10/5; streaming tickets $15/5
Open to the Public
group photo of the artists

Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
Legendary jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim last performed at Middlebury 30 years ago, mere days before the opening of the now Mahaney Arts Center.  This time he’ll grace our Robison Hall stage with his band Ekaya, which means “home”—during a weekend that celebrates both South African Freedom Day and International Jazz Day. The face of South-African jazz, Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) is known and beloved for his work, Mannenberg, which is regarded as an anti-apartheid anthem.

Please join us for a reception in the lobby after the concert.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

$25/20/10/5
Open to the Public
artist in a yellow dress holding the cello

Sophie Shao & Friends

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
Acclaimed Cellist Sophie Shao collaborates with our Performing Arts Series each season to bring a fresh chamber music performance—this year, responding to our request for a program celebrating composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday. She’s joined by violinist Scott Yoo and pianist John Novacek for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Trio élégiaque No. 1, Reena Esmail’s Piano Trio, and more. and If you’ve never heard Shao play before, or if you’re a veteran of her concerts, you’ll revel in her remarkable ability to assemble impromptu ensembles that shine.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

$25/20/10/5; streaming tickets $15/5
Open to the Public
5 people standing on a street holding their instruments

The Westerlies; Theo Bleckmann

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
The Westerlies, a most innovative brass quartet of trumpet and trombone players who skirt the boundaries of jazz, classical, and pop, have paired with Theo Bleckmann, one of today’s most in-demand composers/vocalists. Together these two powerhouses have created a contemporary musical performance called “This Land.” Highlighting the power of music to invigorate protest movements and provide internal solace amidst external turmoil, “This Land” comprises cleverly arranged songs by Bertolt Brecht, Joni Mitchell, Woody Guthrie, Agha Shahid Ali, and many others.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

$25/20/10/5; streaming tickets $15/5
Open to the Public
dancers in motion capture suits

The Wilds : Laurel Jenkins (dance), Jesse Fleming (visuals), Lewis Pesacov (music)

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series and Dance
Assistant Professor of Dance Laurel Jenkins and her co-creators Jesse Fleming and Lewis Pesacov present a new mixed-reality performance experience where movement instantly becomes music, and emerging technology allows dancers to create an immersive journey of sound, light, and visual media in real time. Live dancers with motion capture technology and simultaneous animation create The Wilds before your eyes. Part mythology, part utopian vision, The Wilds echoes patterns of nature from the subatomic to the cosmological to reveal the interconnectedness of all beings. 

Mahaney Arts Center Dance Theatre

$25/20/10/5
Open to the Public
dancers in motion capture suits

The Wilds : Laurel Jenkins (dance), Jesse Fleming (visuals), Lewis Pesacov (music)

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series and Dance
Assistant Professor of Dance Laurel Jenkins and her co-creators Jesse Fleming and Lewis Pesacov present a new mixed-reality performance experience where movement instantly becomes music, and emerging technology allows dancers to create an immersive journey of sound, light, and visual media in real time. Live dancers with motion capture technology and simultaneous animation create The Wilds before your eyes. Part mythology, part utopian vision, The Wilds echoes patterns of nature from the subatomic to the cosmological to reveal the interconnectedness of all beings. 
$25/20/10/5
Open to the Public
4 people standing against a white background

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
Audiences so loved our virtual presentations of the Chamber Music Society (CMS) of Lincoln Center that we jumped at the chance to bring them live to Robison Hall. This “Magical Schubert”program celebrates Franz Schubert’s genius with three of his most significant chamber works—the lighthearted fantasy for Violin and Piano in C Major; his splendid Piano Trio in B-flat Major, No. 1; and his greatest piano duet, the Fantasie in F Minor—all performed by an all-star line-up including violinist Benjamin Beilman, cellist David Requiro, and pianists Alessio Bax and Gloria Chien.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

$25/20/10/5; streaming tickets $15/5
Open to the Public
4 people standing next to each other dressed in blue

Heart of Afghanistan

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
The Heart of Afghanistan project features four brilliant Afghan musicians—famed singer/Afghan TV star Ahmad Fanoos on vocals & harmonium, his sons Elham on piano and Fanoos on violin, and Ahmad Sohail Karimi on tabla—who are currently unable to perform inside Afghanistan, where the Taliban has banned all music. The group carries the flame of Afghanistan’s rich and complex musical heritage from its pre-Islamic Buddhist period to the modern era.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

$25/20/10/5; streaming tickets $15/5
Open to the Public
house on a snowy night with shadow figures in the foreground

Manual Cinema: A Christmas Carol

Sponsored by:
Performing Arts Series
Following up on their smash 2019 presentation at Middlebury, the interdisciplinary performance collective Manual Cinema takes on Charles Dickens’s holiday classic A Christmas Carol with a visually inventive adaptation made for the screen. In this version, avowed holiday skeptic Aunt Trudy has been recruited to channel her late husband Joe’s famous Christmas cheer. From the isolation of her studio apartment, she reconstructs his annual Christmas Carol puppet show—over a Zoom call while the family celebrates Christmas Eve under lockdown.

Virtual Middlebury

Free
Open to the Public