New Music on the Point and Scrag Mountain Music present
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Brandon Concerts
We are asking everyone to please wear a mask or face covering to this concert.
Saturday, September 11 at 5 and 5:30 pm (5 pm is SOLD OUT)
Fuller's allée, 82 Park Street Extension, Brandon, VT 05733
[Rain date: Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 5 pm]
*Parking is limited, carpooling/walking is encouraged.
*Walking shoes recommended
Concert option 1: (5 pm is SOLD OUT)
4:30 pm Brandon Walking Tour led by the Historical Society (Please meet at the gazebo. Parking @ Brandon Inn or behind Café Provence)
5:00 pm Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees
5:30 pm Intermezzo featuring Evan Premo’s A Murmur in the Trees - to note and original poetry by poet Karin Gottshall
Concert option 2:
5:00 pm Brandon Walking Tour led by the Historical Society (Please meet at the gazebo. Parking @ Brandon Inn or behind Café Provence)
5:30 pm Intermezzo featuring Evan Premo’s A Murmur in the Trees - note and original poetry by poet Karin Gottshall
6:00 pm Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees
Montpelier Concert
We are asking everyone to please wear a mask or face covering to this concert.
Sunday, September 12 at 11 am
Hubbard Park New Shelter 400 Parkway St., Montpelier
*Parking is limited, carpooling/walking is encouraged.
*Walking shoes recommended
Concert details:
11:00 am Prelude featuring Karin Gottshall poet and Evan Premo’s A Murmur in the Trees - to note
11:15 am Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees
We are asking everyone to please wear a mask or face covering to this concert.
Saturday, September 11 at 5 and 5:30 pm (5 pm is SOLD OUT)
Fuller's allée, 82 Park Street Extension, Brandon, VT 05733
[Rain date: Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 5 pm]
*Parking is limited, carpooling/walking is encouraged.
*Walking shoes recommended
Concert option 1: (5 pm is SOLD OUT)
4:30 pm Brandon Walking Tour led by the Historical Society (Please meet at the gazebo. Parking @ Brandon Inn or behind Café Provence)
5:00 pm Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees
5:30 pm Intermezzo featuring Evan Premo’s A Murmur in the Trees - to note and original poetry by poet Karin Gottshall
Concert option 2:
5:00 pm Brandon Walking Tour led by the Historical Society (Please meet at the gazebo. Parking @ Brandon Inn or behind Café Provence)
5:30 pm Intermezzo featuring Evan Premo’s A Murmur in the Trees - note and original poetry by poet Karin Gottshall
6:00 pm Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees
Montpelier Concert
We are asking everyone to please wear a mask or face covering to this concert.
Sunday, September 12 at 11 am
Hubbard Park New Shelter 400 Parkway St., Montpelier
*Parking is limited, carpooling/walking is encouraged.
*Walking shoes recommended
Concert details:
11:00 am Prelude featuring Karin Gottshall poet and Evan Premo’s A Murmur in the Trees - to note
11:15 am Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees
This program is Free with reservations encouraged.
| Murmur Program.pdf |
About the program
A Murmur in the Trees is an immersive concert experience performed in nature with works inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name. The performances feature the World Premiere of a work by internationally renowned composer Eve Beglarian for twenty-four double basses that treats a piece of birch bark as a musical score. Created in collaboration with bassist Robert Black (Bang On A Can All-Stars) and composer/programmer Matt Sargent, this half-hour staged piece allows listeners to move as they choose in the environment, creating their own unique experience of the piece and the place. Also on the program is the World Premiere of a new song setting of Dickinson’s poem by Scrag co-Artistic Director Evan Premo for soprano and two double basses, performed by Scrag co-Artistic Director Mary Bonhag, Premo, and Black, and poetry reading by Middlebury-based poet Karin Gottshall.
“I keep thinking about how Emily Dickinson wrote her curious poem A Murmur in the Trees in the midst of the Civil War, just as we today are living through complex times. The piece aims to create a space in which art and nature are in a relationship that deeply rewards taking time and paying attention, time and attention that can’t help but reinforce reverence for the natural world.” -- Eve Beglarian
A Murmur in the Trees is an immersive concert experience performed in nature with works inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name. The performances feature the World Premiere of a work by internationally renowned composer Eve Beglarian for twenty-four double basses that treats a piece of birch bark as a musical score. Created in collaboration with bassist Robert Black (Bang On A Can All-Stars) and composer/programmer Matt Sargent, this half-hour staged piece allows listeners to move as they choose in the environment, creating their own unique experience of the piece and the place. Also on the program is the World Premiere of a new song setting of Dickinson’s poem by Scrag co-Artistic Director Evan Premo for soprano and two double basses, performed by Scrag co-Artistic Director Mary Bonhag, Premo, and Black, and poetry reading by Middlebury-based poet Karin Gottshall.
“I keep thinking about how Emily Dickinson wrote her curious poem A Murmur in the Trees in the midst of the Civil War, just as we today are living through complex times. The piece aims to create a space in which art and nature are in a relationship that deeply rewards taking time and paying attention, time and attention that can’t help but reinforce reverence for the natural world.” -- Eve Beglarian
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Artists
Robert Black, Evan Premo, and 22 professional and student bass players. Mary Bonhag, soprano Karin Gottshall, poet |
Program
Eve Beglarian A Murmur in the Trees Evan Premo A Murmur in the Trees - to note |
Collaborators
Even Beglarian, composer
Evan Premo, double bass
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According to the Los Angeles Times, composer and performer Eve Beglarian is a “humane, idealistic rebel and a musical sensualist.” A 2017 winner of the Alpert Award in the Arts for her “prolific, engaging and surprising body of work,” she has also been awarded the 2015 Robert Rauschenberg Prize from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts for her “innovation, risk-taking, and experimentation.” Beglarian’s current and recent projects include a collaboration with writer/performer Karen Kandel and writer/director Mallory Catlett about women in Vicksburg from the Civil War to the present, a piece about the controversial Balthus painting Thérèse Dreaming for vocalist Lucy Dhegrae, and a duo for uilleann pipes and organ that was premiered by Renée Louprette and Ivan Goff at Disney Hall as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 100th anniversary celebrations. Since 2001, she has been creating A Book of Days, “a grand and gradually manifesting work in progress…an eclectic and wide-open series of enticements.” (Los Angeles Times) Recordings of Beglarian’s music are available on ECM, Koch, New World, Cantaloupe, Innova, Naxos, Kill Rock Stars, CDBaby, and Bandcamp. evbvd.com
Robert Black tours the world creating unheard of music for the double bass, collaborating with the most adventurous composers, musicians, dancers, artists, actors, and technophiles from all walks of life. He is a founding and current member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Current projects include First Fridays with Robert Black – a monthly series of streamed solo bass recitals, a 10-channel audio/video double bass installation reflecting on the Anthropocene with sound artists Brian House and Sue Huang, filmed at the Freshkills landfill in NYC, and commissions from Carman Moore, Joan Tower, Nick Dunston, Žibuolkė Martinaitytė, Krists Auznieks, Jakhongir Shukurov, and Daniel Sabzghabaei. Solo recordings include Philip Glass-Bass Partita and Poetry (Orange Mountain Music), Possessed (Cantaloupe Records) Modern American Bass (New World Records), The Bass Music of Christian Wolff and Giacinto Scelsi (Mode Records), and State of the Bass (O.O. Discs). robertblack.org
Matt Sargent is a composer, guitarist, and music technologist based in upstate New York. His work grows from interests in resonance and recursive systems, computer models of intelligence, and the making/breaking of long-form patterns. His compositions have been described as “bringing a sharpened sense of the transcendental into the 21st century.” (Paul Muller, Sequenza21) On his 2018 album, Ghost Music, Bill Meyer writes, “this music isn’t about following in anyone’s footsteps; it uses bare resources to establish a bounded and essential place.” (The Wire) His albums include Separation Songs (Cold Blue Music), Tide (for ten basses) (Marginal Frequency), and Ghost Music (Weighter Recordings). In demand as an audio engineer for contemporary and experimental music, Sargent recently recorded Alvin Lucier’s Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle), Sarah Hennies’s Spectral Malsconcities (New World Records), David Felder’s Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux (Coviello Contemporary), and Paul Catanese’s Century of Progress / Sleep, among others. Praising his work on Robert Carl’s album, Splectra (Cold Blue Music), Fanfare Magazinewrites, “he could find no better collaborator than composer and sound designer Matt Sargent.” Sargent is a visiting assistant professor of music at Bard College. mattsargentmusic.com
Double Bassist / Composer Evan Premo creates heart-centered music that inspires audiences and musicians alike. His music has been commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, River Town Duo, Owen Dalby, the International Society of Bassists, Diana Gannett, Paul Dwyer, The Pine Mountain Music Festival, Capitol City Concerts, and the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra. Evan is a member of Decoda with which he has performed in residencies around the world including four he led in Abu Dhabi, UAE. As a member of Ensemble Connect, Evan has performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall and participated in residencies in Spain and Germany. As a chamber musician, he has performed at summer music festivals throughout the country and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Evan has participated in and collaborated with New Music on the Point summer festival in Leicester, Vermont. Evan resides in Vermont where he is active teaching and performing and is Founder co-Artistic Director of Scrag Mountain Music with his wife, soprano Mary Bonhag. He is also Founder and Artistic Director of Beethoven and Banjos, a residency that brings together folk and classical musicians for cross-genre concerts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Karin Gottshall lives in East Middlebury and teaches Creative Writing at Middlebury College. She has published two full-length books of poetry, the most recent of which is The River Won't Hold You, and three limited edition chapbooks with small independent presses. Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as The Kenyon Review, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, and FIELD. She is Director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf.
Robert Black tours the world creating unheard of music for the double bass, collaborating with the most adventurous composers, musicians, dancers, artists, actors, and technophiles from all walks of life. He is a founding and current member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Current projects include First Fridays with Robert Black – a monthly series of streamed solo bass recitals, a 10-channel audio/video double bass installation reflecting on the Anthropocene with sound artists Brian House and Sue Huang, filmed at the Freshkills landfill in NYC, and commissions from Carman Moore, Joan Tower, Nick Dunston, Žibuolkė Martinaitytė, Krists Auznieks, Jakhongir Shukurov, and Daniel Sabzghabaei. Solo recordings include Philip Glass-Bass Partita and Poetry (Orange Mountain Music), Possessed (Cantaloupe Records) Modern American Bass (New World Records), The Bass Music of Christian Wolff and Giacinto Scelsi (Mode Records), and State of the Bass (O.O. Discs). robertblack.org
Matt Sargent is a composer, guitarist, and music technologist based in upstate New York. His work grows from interests in resonance and recursive systems, computer models of intelligence, and the making/breaking of long-form patterns. His compositions have been described as “bringing a sharpened sense of the transcendental into the 21st century.” (Paul Muller, Sequenza21) On his 2018 album, Ghost Music, Bill Meyer writes, “this music isn’t about following in anyone’s footsteps; it uses bare resources to establish a bounded and essential place.” (The Wire) His albums include Separation Songs (Cold Blue Music), Tide (for ten basses) (Marginal Frequency), and Ghost Music (Weighter Recordings). In demand as an audio engineer for contemporary and experimental music, Sargent recently recorded Alvin Lucier’s Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle), Sarah Hennies’s Spectral Malsconcities (New World Records), David Felder’s Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux (Coviello Contemporary), and Paul Catanese’s Century of Progress / Sleep, among others. Praising his work on Robert Carl’s album, Splectra (Cold Blue Music), Fanfare Magazinewrites, “he could find no better collaborator than composer and sound designer Matt Sargent.” Sargent is a visiting assistant professor of music at Bard College. mattsargentmusic.com
Double Bassist / Composer Evan Premo creates heart-centered music that inspires audiences and musicians alike. His music has been commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, River Town Duo, Owen Dalby, the International Society of Bassists, Diana Gannett, Paul Dwyer, The Pine Mountain Music Festival, Capitol City Concerts, and the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra. Evan is a member of Decoda with which he has performed in residencies around the world including four he led in Abu Dhabi, UAE. As a member of Ensemble Connect, Evan has performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall and participated in residencies in Spain and Germany. As a chamber musician, he has performed at summer music festivals throughout the country and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Evan has participated in and collaborated with New Music on the Point summer festival in Leicester, Vermont. Evan resides in Vermont where he is active teaching and performing and is Founder co-Artistic Director of Scrag Mountain Music with his wife, soprano Mary Bonhag. He is also Founder and Artistic Director of Beethoven and Banjos, a residency that brings together folk and classical musicians for cross-genre concerts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Karin Gottshall lives in East Middlebury and teaches Creative Writing at Middlebury College. She has published two full-length books of poetry, the most recent of which is The River Won't Hold You, and three limited edition chapbooks with small independent presses. Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as The Kenyon Review, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, and FIELD. She is Director of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf.
Thank you Marianne Donahue Perchlik for sharing this poem after the event.
| Life etched in birch bark |
This program is part of the Stages in the Sun initiative, supported by a generous COVID-19 Response Grant from the Vermont Community Foundation.
Photos: Mary Bonhag and Evan Premo (c) Ember Photo
Photos: Mary Bonhag and Evan Premo (c) Ember Photo