BRATTLEBORO-The new executive director of the Brattleboro Music Center, clarinetist Jessica Calandra, is already deeply immersing herself in the richness of Brattleboro’s music scene.
Calandra, along with her husband, Peter Doyle, a chartering broker in the international shipping business, moved here from Tampa, Florida, to take the helm of the BMC from Mary Greene, who retired Aug. 1 after 12 years. Greene will remain involved with BMC’s special projects.
The BMC was founded in 1952 by violinist and choral director Blanche Honegger Moyse to “promote the love and understanding of good music through performance and education and make it a vital part of the community.”
BMC introduced chamber music into the volatile music mix now available here, which includes the Vermont Jazz Center for (obviously) jazz and the Stone Church for alternative rock and pop music. Both are in Brattleboro.
Next Stage Arts in Putney offers contemporary touring shows in world and Americana music, and enthusiasts of hip Americana music in Bellows Falls can find it at the Opera House and Stage 33 Live.
Calandra, 53, is young at heart and energetic. She has already checked out the growing open mic scene at Marigold in Brattleboro.
“It was beautiful,” she told The Commons. “It was wonderful to just walk in. The range of playing, the styles of music — it’s really lovely to see that as a regular, ongoing event. That’s representative of this whole town, where any night you can go and enjoy music.”
And, of course, she checked out Celtic Night, BMC’s contribution to the free Music Under the Stars program at the Retreat Farm.
“We had over 600 people show up,” Calandra said. “The BMC covered the costs so that people, if they wanted to show up and see a concert, they didn’t have to pay anything. That’s the beautiful, the cool thing, about that concert.
“The two people running it were guitarist Keith Murphy and fiddle player Becky Tracy,” she continued. “At the end of the concert we did this huge contra dance around. They taught us how to do it. I had never contra danced before, but it was wonderful.”
Murphy is the co-founder of the BMC’s Northern Roots Festival, which happens every January and features regional and international roots music.
The beauty of BMC is “they do everything,” Calandra said. “Roots music, classical music — there’s a lot of it at the BMC.”
BMC’s upcoming 2026–27 season will includes chamber music concerts, string quartets, contemporary pop groups, performances by the Brattleboro Concert Choir, musicians from the Marlboro Music Festival — more than 38 concerts lined up so far.
The BMC has a $6 million endowment and an approximately $1 million annual budget. It supports a paid staff of seven. It offers musical education, participation, and performance activities that involve thousands of local residents. These activities include a community chorus, a chamber music series, a community orchestra, many concerts and educational programs in public schools, annual festivals, and a thriving community music school.
Calandra was chosen after a nationwide search.
“Her track record of building programs that bring people of all ages together around music, combined with their deep commitment to access and education, make her the right leader to build on our 74-year-old legacy,” said Lisa Cox, president of the BMC board of trustees.
A lifetime of music
Calandra chose to play the clarinet in the seventh grade.
“Clarinet was the instrument that felt good when I tried it out,” she said. “The band director was like, ‘Here, try this.’ ‘Try that.’ And clarinet just just worked for me. I loved the way it felt when I played it, the actual feeling, the vibration of a reed. And when I would play the low register, it felt good.”
Calandra described playing the instrument as “something that I felt I could do well.”
“My parents were excited about it,” she said. “I was not your top-notch student, so it was the thing I could hold on to that made me feel like I was worth something.”
Calandra said she sees her own story as an illustration of her commitment to musical education in the schools, where these same types of programs are often threatened today.
“I think there are a lot of kids that need to have that access, who need to have an opportunity to play a clarinet or a flute, and that’s got to be something that the BMC focuses on,” Calandra said.
“Where do we get these kids? Isn’t there music education in the schools?” she continued. “There is, from what I’m learning about this community. But the first thing that gets cut in schools are arts programs. Band and string programs get cut, or they get diminished. You don’t have the funding you need to hire the teachers to run the programs, and you don’t make space for the programs in your afterschool [schedule].”
Educators, wanting to make sure that “kids can read and write and do arithmetic and all that,” begin to think, “Well, the arts aren’t very important,” Calendra said.
“But guess what? They are important,” she said, calling the music programs “really the core of me.”
“Because I was the kid who struggled until I picked up the clarinet,” Calandra said. “Then the clarinet was it. I held on to that clarinet all the way through, and that’s what made me who I am today.”
Calandra holds degrees in clarinet performance, K–12 instrumental music education, and a brand new master’s degree in performing arts administration. She still plays.
“I’m actually going to play with the clarinet choir at BMC,” she said. “I don’t know how many people are in it this year, but it can start with four to five to six, or you could have 20 people. [...] You’ve got that vibration, that feeling, your instrument that’s carried you through, and then you’re with people who do the same thing. You talk about reeds. You talk about mouthpieces. You read music. It’s wonderful.”
Building connections for today’s families
In Florida, during her 20-year career in music education, Calandra founded and led two nonprofit organizations. One was an intergenerational chamber music initiative that brought together musicians of all ages and experience levels to rehearse and perform.
The second was the Tampa Metropolitan Youth Orchestra, where she worked with educators, families, and community partners to expand access to high-quality music education. The two nonprofits consolidated in 2023.
Now that Calandra is based in Brattleboro, her plans are, first, to listen to what the community wants.
“Then I want to build on the connection that we have with Brattleboro and the schools and the kids and the young families,” Calandra said.
“I want to make sure that we take the mission that we are there to serve, and educate, and be open, and make sure everybody knows that’s possible. So my first priorities are visibility and access,” she said.
More specifically, Calandra wants to build more education programs.
“I want to strengthen the music school,” she said. “Again, I’m not saying that things aren’t great there now. But whenever you’re new, of course, you’re going to have a vision for change. And for me, I’d like to see a program that brings in younger musicians and gives them an opportunity to carry that education all the way through.”
That can mean a Suzuki music program, “where kids are learning to play for the first time, and then that program leads to the next step and you pass them off to the next teacher,” she said.
“I see a lot of opportunity for students beginning their experience there and carrying through all the way to advanced lessons, and then participating in the professional and higher level stuff,” Calandra said.
She said she also wants to work with the board, the staff, and the community to expand BMC’s outreach in multiple ways.
“Our information gets into the hands of people in a different way now, right?” she said. “We’re not all picking up a newspaper the same way we used to, right? A lot of younger people are using their phone. So when they look at their phone and it’s not popping out at them what’s going on, then that could be an obstacle.”
She observed that “it’s not a simple thing, the way we share information in 2026. I would say there are several different types of strategies that you have to work through.”
Expanding BMC’s relationship with the community is a primary goal.
“We need to understand what is keeping people from showing up at the BMC,” Calandra said. “I don’t know the answer yet. I’m just starting out myself, right? But we need to be curious about what’s happening or be curious about why people may not be as engaged with the BMC as they could be.”
She described everything the organization has done to this point as “fantastic.”
“We’re building on the energy that was there in a 2026 manner,” she said. “But if you’re looking at trying to bring in young families and their children, and get the information to those folks who don’t necessarily pick up a newspaper, then you have to change the way you’re giving out information.”
Calandra wants to find the best practices to get more people to walk in the door to BMC, to take lessons, to participate in education programs, and to come to concerts.
And, she pointed out proudly, anyone can come to a concert. Free tickets are available.
“We’re never going to turn anyone away,” Calandra said. “And that is a big part of the funding that we are always pulling together. You have to make things accessible. We’ve got to keep working on ways to make that possible.”
She said that BMC will “work to invite the community in, not a more aggressive way — that’s the wrong word — but, like, a more intentional way. That’s my vision.”
“When I came to the BMC for the first time, I felt like it was a beautiful, well-kept secret,” Calandra said. “Now I would like to unveil that secret and say, ‘Here we are, world.’”
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.