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Sage City Symphony to Present Free Concert March 9
March 9 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm EDT
Bennington, VT — On Sunday, March 9, at 4:00 p.m. at Greenwall Auditorium in the VAPA Building at Bennington College, Sage City Symphony will present a concert featuring works by Verdi, Glinka, Sibelius, Mozart, and student composers from Long Trail School and Burr & Burton Academy. Admission is free and open to all.
On the program: Overture to Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi; Valse-Fantaisie by Mikhail Glinka; Finlandia by Jean Sibelius; Allegro Aperto (1st movement) from Concerto No. 2 in D Major for Flute and Orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with soloist Julius Boxer-Cooper (Bennington College); and compositions by students from Long Trail School and Burr & Burton Academy: Vistas by Aleks Rutins (B&B), Fantaisie d’un Reve by Katherine Marthage (LT), Distance Between the Pinczow Cathedral Walls by Eliza Olrich (LT), and [Untitled] by Keaton Tarbell (LT).
About Flute Soloist Julius Boxer-Cooper
Julius Boxer-Cooper ’26, from Washington, DC, studies music, linguistics, and Chinese at Bennington College. A lifelong musician who plays flute, drum set, percussion, and a bit of bass guitar and trombone), he has played in a wide range of musical contexts, including classical solo performance, chamber ensembles, small jazz combos, big bands, rock bands, and marimba ensembles, at venues as small as underground clubs and community centers and as large as conference centers, university concert halls, and even the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
About the Student Composers
Aleks Rutins is a student at Burr & Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont. Katherine Marthage, Eliza Olrich, and Keaton Tarbell are students at Long Trail School in Dorset, Vermont.
About Music Director and Composer Michael Finckel
Having served as principal cellist during Sage City Symphony’s early years in the 1970s, and later as a commissioned composer and cello soloist, music director Michael Finckel continues the unique traditions and musical standards of the orchestra’s cofounder, Louis Calabro.
A native of Bennington, Vermont, Finckel’s formative studies were with his parents, both prominent musicians well known throughout the state. He later attended Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and Bennington College, where he studied composition, conducting, and orchestration with Louis Calabro and Henry Brant. He has taught cello and composition at Bennington and Marymount Colleges, and at Princeton and Cornell Universities. As a member of the faculty of the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts, he taught gifted junior and senior high school students from around the state. Currently living in New York City, Finckel is engaged in an active multiple career as soloist, chamber musician, composer, teacher, and conductor. As a cellist he has performed with orchestral and chamber ensembles in venues from coast to coast and across Europe. He performs and coaches each summer at the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers Forum of the East at Bennington College.
About Sage City Symphony
Cofounded in 1972 by composer Louis Calabro and Christine Graham as a community and college orchestra with close ties to Bennington College, Sage City Symphony gave its first concert in 1973. At the time, it was one of only a handful of orchestras in the country to commission and premiere new works. Today the symphony performs the traditional classical repertoire as well as contemporary music, commissioning and premiering new pieces each season, with the mission of presenting programs that are beyond the usual ambition of community orchestras and that offer a challenging playing opportunity to local musicians. The symphony attracts a high caliber of dedicated amateur and professional players who travel from throughout Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts for weekly rehearsals during the concert season. Auditions are not required, and academic credit is available for Bennington College students who participate. Information about joining the symphony, as well as COVID protocols observed at rehearsals and concerts, is available at www.SageCitySymphony.org.
Sage City Symphony is a registered federal non-profit organization in the State of Vermont that relies entirely on generous donations, gifts in kind, grants, and volunteer services from individuals, local foundations, businesses, and sponsors. Donations are gratefully received by mail at Sage City Symphony, PO Box 547, Shaftsbury, VT 05262 or online via www.SageCitySymphony.org. Concerts are always free and open to all.
