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The Baroque period is classical music’s gateway drug: Dance-like rhythms, sweet harmonies and lilting melodies make it easy to get hooked. New addicts often don’t know that underpinning every toe-tapping trumpet run or virtuosic violin dash is the continuo, usually a harpsichord and cello. This foundation provides rhythmic and harmonic drive — the hallmark of Baroque’s infectious perpetual motion — and allows the other instruments to shine.... Read more

Here’s something two average Chittenden County teens are not usually doing on a Saturday night: performing a Baroque violin concerto with a professional ensemble for a paying audience. Sally Bruce, 16, of Williston and Anna Landell, 15, of Richmond won the Burlington Chamber Orchestra’s Young Artist Solo Competition.... Read more

Reaching the age of 100 calls for celebration, and the Chandler Music Hall in Randolph has been doing it in grand style. As part of a yearlong fête for the century-old venue, the Chandler Center for the Arts commissioned work from three Vermont composers. Gwyneth Walker turned her commission into a two-day choral celebration; Kathy Wonson Eddy’s choral suite was performed by the renowned Hilliard Ensemble.... Read more

Sixteenth-century religious reformer Martin Luther probably never made the famous quip often attributed to him — “Why should the devil have all the good tunes?” — in which “the devil” meant the Catholic Church. But he did issue a call to arms for fresh Protestant music, and composed many rousing hymns himself. The tone of the spurious quote captures the fierce competitiveness of Europe’s musical scene at the time. War raged between Catholics and Protestants militarily, philosophically and artistically.... Read more

Why is the theater critic slumming — I mean, showing up — in the music section? Here’s a little secret: Before arriving at Seven Days a couple years ago, I was far more experienced as a music reviewer than as a stage sage, having covered symphony and opera at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for three years. I also performed many years as a cellist and a singer.... Read more

It’s one thing to throw yourself a 60th birthday party and be serenaded by your guests. It’s quite another to celebrate with a two-day, five-concert extravaganza involving hundreds of singers and musicians . . . and write all the music yourself.... Read more

Dangerous ice jams on the Winooski River forced Montpelier residents to hunker down nervously for weeks earlier this year. This increased the challenge for one of the Capital City's imperiled arts institutions, the Monteverdi Music School. How do you entice weary townsfolk to come out - and open their wallets?... Read more

Two Montpelier arts organizations facing dire financial crises last year report a sounder start to 2007. Tim Tavcar, a longtime Lost Nation Theater staffer who became the Monteverdi Music School's director last September, offers a "guardedly optimistic" assessment for both groups. "While nobody is out of the woods, the woods are at least a little less thick than they were," he notes. A key element in the survival strategy is "partnering with other organizations in the community," Tavcar says. "You've got to work together because the pool of support is limited."... Read more

Just how do you celebrate someone's 250th birthday? When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart reached the quarter-millennium mark in January, the event unleashed a global torrent of commemoration and celebration. The prolific wunderkind composer died when he was just 35 years old, but he left an astonishing 626 works behind - operas, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, choral music and more. This wondrous musical legacy has remained tremendously popular ever since, among classical music's cognoscenti as well as its casual fans.... Read more

What auditory force could compel scores of volunteer musicians to turn out on a weeknight and tackle a challenging work by a notoriously picky composer, with no actual concert date in sight? On a chilly night this spring dozens of performers, amateur and pro, gathered in the arch-roofed Elley-Long Center to play through the second symphony of fin de siècle composer Gustav Mahler. I was one of them. Wanting to know what kind of music could inspire this degree of dedication, I'd signed up for the flute section.... Read more