MIDDLEBURY — Under the baton of guest conductor, Dr. Yutaka Kono, the Champlain Philharmonic will present its Spring Concert Series titled “Storytellers,” Sunday, May 15, at 4 p.m. at the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury. The concert will also be performed on May 8, at 4 p.m. at Green Mountain College in Poultney.
Kono is the artistic director of the Burlington Chamber Orchestra, conductor of the Vermont Youth Philharmonia of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association, and orchestra director and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Vermont.
Weaving tales through music, the program will include the overture to “?La Cenerentola” (“Cinderella”), one of ?Gioachino Rossini’s best-known operas? “D?anse Bacchanale,” from the opera “Samson and Delilah” by Camille Saint­Saëns? Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” and the ?“Carmen Suites No. 1 and 2,” composed of the orchestral music drawn from Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera, ?“Carmen.”
The performances will also feature the premiere of ?“Surviving Soul,” a work written for the orchestra by Vermont student composer Leslie Bixby, who is a senior at Black River High School in Ludlow. She began arranging music in seventh grade and composing in ninth grade and has participated in Music­COMP, the online mentoring program for student composers. Three of her compositions have been selected to be played by members of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.
“My dream is to become a composer and music therapist. ?I want to create a change. When people are with me I want them to leave feeling confident while knowing that I have helped. I want to help those who are going through the same experience I have gone through, whether it is being adopted, or maybe going through depression, self­harm, or an eating disorder,” Bixby said. “I want them to know that music is something you can always go to and it will always be by your side. I have learned to express myself through music and I wish to teach many others to do the same.”
Bixby will be attending Plymouth State University this fall to study music education.
Tickets are available at the door for both performances: $15 general admission, $10 seniors and $5 students. Advance tickets for the Middlebury performance at the Town Hall Theater may be purchased by calling the box office at 802­382­9222 or going online to www.townhalltheater.org. For more information visit www.champlainphilharmonic.org or Facebook at www.facebook.com/ChamplainPhil.