Killington and Craftsbury festivals: Chamber music engulfs Vermont

By Jim Lowe
Staff Writer
Vermont’s chamber music season is now fully upon us. Manchester’s Taconic Music, the Green Mountain Chamber Music at Saint Michael’s College this year, and the Manchester Music Festival are all well underway. Now, it’s time for two venerable favorites to rear their heads — both a little different this year.

Although Killington Music Festival is without students this year, its faculty will perform free concerts in the Rutland area to whet your appetite for 2022. After only a few concerts in 2020, the Craftsbury Chamber Players are incorporating that success with outdoor concerts into its regular summer season. Both festivals offer first-rate chamber music.

Killington Music Festival

The Killington Music Festival, for its 39th season, is in its second summer without students because of COVID-19 concerns. Instead, to maintain its longtime connection to the Rutland area, Daniel Andai, violinist and artistic director, will lead a quartet of free hour-long concerts around the community.

Public performances will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Castleton Community Center; 7 p.m. Friday at Rutland Free Library; and noon Saturday at The Sparkle Barn in Wallingford. (This concert is outdoors, so bring a blanket or chair to sit on.) The faculty quartet will also perform at the Rutland “Gift-of-Life Marathon” blood drive Tuesday (in memory of Peter Giancola), as well as for elders and youth groups, for those who otherwise might not have the opportunity to hear live music.

Violinists Andai and Regi Papa, violist John Vaida and cellist Bryan Hayslett will select from works by Mozart, Beethoven and Dvořák, as well as Carlos Gardel (1890-1935), Astor Piazzolla (1921-92), Mark Summers (b. 1951), Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963) and Lorenz Hart (1895-1943), which will be announced from the stage. Andai, concertmaster of the Miami Symphony Orchestra, and dean of Music at New World School of the Arts, has chosen topnotch string players to join him.

Killington normally has some 50 students, but as they are high school age with some even younger, Executive Director Maria Fish, Andai and the board decided not to take the risk so early in the pandemic recovery. However, the hills of Killington are expected to be filled with the sound of music next summer.

Craftsbury Chamber Players

Founded in 1966, the Craftsbury Chamber Players are one of Vermont’s most venerable chamber music institutions. But rather than strictly traditional, their concerts offer everything from Mozart and Haydn to today — and plenty of today.

This summer, the Players are offering six pairs of concerts, each program at two locations. But after the success of last summer’s sporadic outdoor “pop up” concerts around the region, alternating indoor and outdoor concerts will be presented at the Elley-Long Music Center in Colchester and the Hardwick Town House, and outdoors in South Burlington (location to be announced) and on Craftsbury Common.

Now directed by cellist Frances Rowell, who grew up on a farm in Craftsbury and went on to Juilliard and the New Jersey Symphony, the Players have evolved into a very today music organization. Her sister Mary, also a product of the farm and Juillliard, has performed internationally as an avant-garde violinist also dabbling in tango, rock and Broadway. (She also plays Mozart beautifully.)

Another regular is violinist Katherine Winterstein, longtime concertmaster of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. They will be joined by instrumentalists of a similar level, including violinists Molly Goldman and Darryl Kubian, violists Wendy Richman and Liuh-Wen Ting, and pianist Mary Jane Austin.

Another tradition continues: “Free Afternoon Mini Concerts for Children and Their Friends” in Burlington, Hardwick and Greensboro. (For dates and times, consult the website.) Unfortunately, the pre-concert chats have been canceled for 2021.

No two festivals are alike, so it would be a good idea to visit as many as you can. You won’t regret it.

Jim Lowe is music critic and arts editor of The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and Rutland Herald, and can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].