“The Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s … BIPOC-focused program for its final streamed concert of the season, on March 27 … features compositions by Joseph Bologne, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and seven other composers of color,” writes Amy Lilly in Wednesday’s (3/24) Seven Days (Burlington, VT). BIPOC refers to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. “Four of the seven composers [Dorothy Rudd Moore, Carlos Simon, Ray Vega, and Matthew Evan Taylor] are living…. Simon’s and Vega’s pieces are both VSO commissions…. The … prerecorded and edited video event [combines] music, verse and visual art. Former Vermonter Reuben Jackson … provides audio introductions to each poet, artist or composer…. Former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove has provided audio of herself reading two of her poems….. Works by three Vermont BIPOC artists—Crystal Stokes … Alan Blackwell … and Haitian-born Julio Desmont … will be projected on a screen behind the musicians as they perform…. The orchestra is currently hiring a music director to replace soon-to-retire Jaime Laredo; each of the seven candidates, VSO executive director Elise Brunelle said, has been tasked with programming BIPOC composers for the concerts they will conduct as part of their audition…. ‘So, for us, it’s not an incidental thing,’ … Brunelle said.”
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