BRATTLEBORO-Juno Orchestra and its music director, Zon Eastes, present a program for string orchestra titled “This World” Sunday, Feb. 8, at 2:30 p.m. at the Brattleboro Music Center (BMC), 72 Blanche Moyse Way.
The concert premieres a new work by Vermont composer Erik Nielsen, “In the Midst of It All,” which Eastes says aligns with the program’s overall focus on recurrence. “It opens with four downward-stepping notes resting atop somber chords. The four-note cell reappears throughout the work and seems to stand as an emotional marker.”
In a news release, Eastes explained that the entire program features structural elements that circle and reiterate, or like the Earth, rotate and orbit: passacaglias, chaconnes, and minimalist cells, “a fascinating platform for all sorts of improvisatory exploration, akin to jazz.”
Three Juno musicians will be featured as soloists for this concert, performing works by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Violinists Ryan Shannon and Kathy Andrew will perform “Passacaglia” and cellist Jennifer Morsches will present “Fratres.”
Shannon is a freelance violinist based in Boston. He performs widely throughout New England and has shared the stage with Celtic Woman, Il Divo, and Johnny Mathis as well as such masters as Yo-Yo Ma and Andrea Bocelli. He studied at the New England Conservatory under Lucy Chapman and Nicholas Kitchen and is the artistic director of Heartspur Arts Festival in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as a core member of Juventas New Music Ensemble in Boston.
Andrew, Juno concertmaster, is also the assistant concertmaster of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Springfield (Mass.) Symphony Orchestra. She performed with Opera North and the New England Bach Festival and has performed with the Dartmouth, Albany, Berkshire, and New Hampshire Symphonies, as well as with the Arcadia Players. She has taught violin and viola at Bennington College and Keene State College, and chamber music at Dartmouth College. She is also currently teaching violin, viola, and chamber music at the BMC.
Cellist Jennifer Morsches is co-artistic director of Sarasa Ensemble, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, acknowledged for its outreach in youth detention centers in the Boston area. She is a founding member of Richter Ensemble and a longtime member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Siècles, and Orchestre des Champs-Élysées. Morsches graduated from Smith College with degrees in music history and German literature, and was awarded the Ernst Wallfisch Prize in music. She received her master’s and doctorate in cello performance at the Mannes College of Music and SUNY at Stony Brook.
“I am so grateful for the cultural richness that is Brattleboro and the surrounding area,” says Eastes. “We are all so much richer for the many fine musicians who have made this their home.”
Juno will also perform an orchestral arrangement of Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 5, composed in 1991, as well as Henry Purcell’s Chacony in G minor, written around 1680 in London.
Tickets are $20 general admission in advance, $25 at the door. They are available from the Brattleboro Music Center: bmcvt.org, 802-257-4523, info@bmcvt.org.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.