On Sunday, May 18, 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 Antonin Dvořák, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Valerie Coleman, and Bennington College student Charlie Love. Admission is free and open to all.

On the program: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” by Antonin Dvořák; Three Preludes by George Gershwin; An Outdoor Overture by Aaron Copland; Seven O’Clock Shout by Valerie Coleman; and Vestige of Spring by Charlie Love.

About Composer Valerie Coleman

Based in New York City, Valerie Coleman studied composition with Martin Amlin and Randy Wolfe and flute with Julius Baker, Judith Mendenhall, Doriot Dwyer, Leone Buyse, and Alan Weiss. She holds faculty positions with the Juilliard School Composition Department, the Manhattan School of Music, the Mannes School of Music Flute and Composition Department, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and she is the director of the Woodwind Quintet Workshop at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute.

Coleman is regarded by many as an iconic artist who continues to pave her own unique path as a composer, GRAMMY-nominated flutist, and entrepreneur. Highlighted as one of the Top 35 Women Composers by the Washington Post, she was named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year. Her works have garnered such awards as the MAPFund, the ASCAP Honors Award, Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program, and the Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, as well as nominations from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists. Coleman’s compositions have been performed by significant orchestras, chamber ensembles, and collegiate bands throughout the United States, and she has performed as a flutist throughout North America and Europe, and her work as a recording artist includes an extensive discography.

Her composition Seven O’Clock Shout was inspired by the daily 7 p.m. ritual of solidarity on the streets of New York City at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic—people leaning out their windows clapping and singing, banging on pots and pans, and shouting their gratitude and encouragement—in acknowledgment of the tireless and heart-breaking sacrifices of front-line workers.

About Composer Charlie Love

Composer Charlie Love, principal double bassist for Sage City Symphony, is a sophomore at Bennington College.

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.