The Middlebury Performing Arts Series opens the fall 2021 season with a long-awaited concert by two dynamic chamber ensembles. Imani Winds and the Catalyst Quartet will join forces for a special program entitled “(im)migration: music of change,” including a newly-commissioned work by leading American composer Jessie Montgomery.

This concert is the first live, in-person event from the Middlebury Performing Arts Series since March of 2020. Audiences from both on- and off-campus are welcome, and the concert is free. Vaccinations (or valid medical or religious exemptions) and masks are required. The event will also be streamed online for free.

The highlight of the evening is the Vermont premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s new work for nine musicians, “Sergeant McCauley,” which brings together spirituals and work songs that reflect her great-grandfather’s route on the Great Migration, from Mississippi through the West, north to the Dakotas, and eventually back to Georgia. The work was co-commissioned by the Middlebury Performing Arts Series in partnership with the national consortium Music Accord and the Sphinx Organization, which champions the work of artists of color.

The program also includes the Imani Winds playing an arrangement of Mongo Santamaría’s Afro Blue; the Catalyst Quartet playing Florence B. Price’s Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint; and both ensembles together in Roberto Sierra’s Concierto de Cámara.

For more information call (802) 443-MIDD (6433) or visit middlebury.edu/arts.