LYNDON - The Vermont Symphony Orchestra presented their 18th annual Made in Vermont Music Festival statewide tour this past week in eight villages and towns all across Vermont.
The VSO started off its annual tour on September 21st, and will be performing their last performance for the tour tonight at 7 p.m. at Castleton State College in the Castleton Fine Arts Center.
The annual VSO tour offers brilliant music to go along with Vermont's traditionally brilliant fall foliage season.
While the VSO often performs in Burlington, most people don't realize how often the VSO hits the road on tour across the state of Vermont, as Alan Jordan, Executive Director of the VSO explains, "Only twenty percent actually of our orchestral concerts take place in Burlington. The rest are on the road across the state.".
Every year for the last 18 years of the festival, a composer has been commissioned to write a piece exclusively for the VSO. This year, David Feurzeig, who is a full time music professor at the University of Vermont, was chosen to write the piece, entitled High Water, it was written about the devastation from Tropical Storm Irene last year. He says, although he usually writes about abstract concepts, he went a different route for this composition. "So I had misgivings about something that was still so raw. It is what I was thinking about in writing the piece. It just made such a strong impression, especially the aftermath.". Feurzeig continued to say that because he teaches full time during the academic year, he wrote most of High Water in about a month. If you're interested in catching the VSO next time they're on tour, you can check out the VSO event schedule to see when there in you're area.