Music

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.

This concert will feature vocal of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna, and music of other master madrigalists, performed by the Middlebury Collegium. Anthony Harvey and Richard Stone, lutes and theorbos.

Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

Affiliate artist Anne Janson and University of Vermont colleague Sylvia Parker present a program featuring the Claude Bolling Suite for flute and jazz trio, with UVM music faculty Jeff Salisbury, drums, and John Rivers, bass. The concert also includes works by Mozart, Bartók, and Faure. Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

Damascus Kafumbe, Director The music of this student ensemble demonstrates the study of many musical Africanisms: complex polyphony, musical conversation, structured improvisation, recurrent patterns, layered ostinati, timbral variety, and tonal variations. These stylistic elements serve as markers of cultural, social, political, and religious lifeways in Africa. Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

Damascus Kafumbe, Director The music of this student ensemble demonstrates the study of many musical Africanisms: complex polyphony, musical conversation, structured improvisation, recurrent patterns, layered ostinati, timbral variety, and tonal variations. These stylistic elements serve as markers of cultural, social, political, and religious lifeways in Africa. Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

Klimowski and Brightman team up to play a concert of music for clarinet and piano. The music spans the clarinet/piano repertoire from Romantic to Modern, including Brahms, Debussy, and improvisations on some of the great popular melodies. Sponsored by the Department of Music. Free

Affiliate artists of the Middlebury College Department of Music present an eclectic concert, playing some of their favorite works, from classical to bluegrass. The artists send a special invite to their music lesson students, and the public is welcome. Free

Amy Wlodarski ’97, associate professor of music at Dickinson College, discusses the film score for Alain Resnais’s Holocaust documentary Nuit et Brouillard/Night and Fog (1955), with particular attention to how it illustrates the broader postwar phenomenon of secondary Holocaust witness.

A Music Department event. Sponsored by the Holocaust Remembrance Film Fund. Free

This year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration features a hybrid of concert and participatory dance, highlighting the rich and related traditions of Ireland and Brittany. Timothy Cummings, affiliate artist and piper, is joined by Pete Sutherland (fiddle, banjo, song), Dominique Dodge (harp, song), and special guest Jeremiah McLane (accordian, piano), dance caller, and student guests. Sponsored by the Department of Music.