In Sarasa Ensemble's opening program for the new 2019-20 concert season, the group explores the profound depth of J.S. Bach’s solo cello suites alongside the great charm and tunefulness of Giacobbe Cervetto’s trios. Of Jewish descent, Cervetto was an immensely popular 18th-century cellist who lived to the ripe age of 101. Performers include Timothy Merton, Jennifer Morsches, and Phoebe Carrai on Baroque cellos.

The VSO joins leaf-peepers on the road in late September, visiting intimate and historic venues across the state with our “Made in Vermont” chamber orchestra tour. This season marks Jaime Laredo’s 20th anniversary as Music Director, and he’s excited to conduct a program that features Ifetayo Ali, a teenage cellist from the Sphinx Program, playing Haydn’s famous C Major Concerto. (Her teachers think she could be the next Yo-Yo Ma!) Also in the spotlight is the VSO's own wonderful principal…

Details coming soon!

Dynamic Duos: Partnerships of the Baroque  The Sarasa Ensemble presents works by Vivaldi, Tartini, Vandini, Corelli, Pietro Boni, Sylvius Leopold Weiss & Händel. This program surveys some of the many partnerships that sprang up during the Baroque era between famous violinist-composers and their favorite cellists, producing a wealth of instrumental sonata repertoire. Performers include Alison Bury, violin; Richard Earle, oboe; Jennifer Morsches, piccolo cello; Timothy Merton, cello; and Michael Leopold, theorbo.

Many classical composers seemed to prefer playing the viola in their chamber music gatherings—from Bach to Beethoven to Mozart to Schubert to Mendelssohn to Dvorak to Hindemith. The program indulges in the great instrumental combination of two violins, two violas and cello, highlighting the beauty of the middle voice, with Mozart's String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516 and Brahms' String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111. Performers are Rodolfo Richter, Susannah Foster, violins; Jenny Stirling, Jason…

In Stile Moderno presents "Dilettare e muovere:  Virtuoso Performances of the Sixteenth Century." The most brilliant performers of the Renaissance were renowned for their effortless and virtuosic ornamentation, and their ability to improvise new works on existing themes. The music they created, based on vocal polyphony, popular tunes, and dance music, remains a great unwritten repertoire, ripe for rediscovery. We continue this practice with our own adaptations of sixteenth-century music, for cornetto, voice, and harpsichord—using old methods to create something new…

We welcome Seven Times Salt and In Stile Moderno, together in concert. The program explores the many guises of the ground bass from “Greensleeves” to “La Follia” and beyond. As the Renaissance era gave way to the early Baroque, music from English consorts and Italian dances to Spanish divisions and broadside ballads all relied on grounds—repeating bass lines—as a common currency in a time of dramatic musical change. You’ll hear favorite pieces from this beloved genre, ranging from traditional grounds…

In Stile Moderno presents "Faithful and Pious Heart: Devotional Music in Seventeenth-Century Italy. Bringing together the lightness of secular song with the gravity of religious themes, canzonette spirituali emerged in seventeenth-century Italy as a form of sacred vocal music intended not for the church, but for private devotion. With texts in the vernacular Italian, rather than Latin, these songs were often inspired by, or even parodied, the popular songs of the day—but together with the catchy bass lines and hummable…