Wednesday, August 9th, 2023 at 7:00 pm A Special Event Bach 5th Cello Suite / Peter Sanders
Chandler Main Stage with stage seating
Chandler Center for the Arts
Admission at the door: $20.00
Thursday, August 10th, 2023 at 7:00 pm Open Rehearsal
Chandler Center for the Arts Admission: Free
Saturday, August 12th, 2023 at 7:30 pm String Trios by Sergei Taneiev and Pedro Saenz and a Brahms Sextet
Chandler Center for the Arts
Sunday August 13th, 2023 at 4:00 pm An Encore Performance String Trios by Sergei Taneiev and Pedro Saenz and a Brahms Sextet
Afternoon concert in Woodstock, VT
Woodstock Unitarian Universalist Church
Presented by the Pentangle Council on the Arts as part of their summer series.
Admission at the door: Donation
Thursday, August 17th, 2023 at 7:00 pm Open Rehearsal
Chandler Center for the Arts Admission: Free
Friday, August 18th, 2023 at 7:00 pm Friday Night in the Gallery
Pete Sutherland memorial concert For Pete's Sake Performed by Paul Woodiel and Jeremiah McLane
Downstairs Gallery Admission: Free, goodwill offering at the door
Saturday, August 19th, 2023 at 7:30 pm String Quartets by William Grant Still and Glazunov, Barber Adagio, and the Mozart Horn Quintet
Chandler Center for the Arts
The Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival announces the release of its first highlight CD: Festival Harvest
"The Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival has come a long way since it was founded in 1993 by Peter Sanders, a New York cellist who grew up spending his summers in the Randolph area. An indication of just how far is its excellentNew CD, "Festival Harvest," a compilation of live performances of works by Mendelssohn, Schönberg and Frank Bridge at the Chandler Center for the Arts in 2000 and 2004.
When I first heard the album, I had recently heard an excellent performance of Mendelssohn's A Major String Quintet at Vermont's justly revered Marlboro Music Festival. The same work opens this CD, and I actually preferred the Randolph performance. That's big praise."
Welcome to the 31st year of the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival! - World-class Music in the Heart of Vermont -
The dates are set for next summer, August 7 - 19, 2023.
We are very excited to continue making music in the very special Chandler Center for the Arts and, again in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Woodstock, VT.
Programs and artists are now set! There will be a Special Event with Peter Sanders playing the 5th Bach Cello Suite in memory of his teacher, colleague and friend, Fred Zlotkin on the Chandler stage with stage seating on Wednesday, August 9th at 7 pm. Friday Night in the Gallery concert will be a memorial concert for Pete Sutherland, For Pete's Sake with Paul Woodiel and Jeremiah McLane on August 18th at 7 pm.
This season's first week will feature a program of all strings including the Brahms String Sextet in B-flat, Op. 18, last performed in 2008. The sextet artists will play string trios by Sergei Taneiev and Pedro Saenz on the first half of the concert. Week two will include the Mozart Horn Quintet with Stewart Rose. Also on that program will be the Glazunov 3rd String Quartet, Op. 26 "Quartour Slave", Barber Adagio from the String Quartet in b minor, Op. 11 (often played by string orchestra) and the Vermont Youth Orchestra String Quartet will open the program with two movements from the string quartet, Danzas de Panama by William Grant Still.
Thank you for your support and we look forward to sharing all this and more with you
in August. In the meantime, please enjoy our performances from past summers that are available on YouTube. Search for CVCMF.
Most sincerely
Peter Sanders - Artistic Director
Artists and Programs subject to change
CVCMF 2018 - Vaughan Williams Piano Quintet in c - 1st movement
Interview with Peter Sanders
Peter Sanders had the pleasure of chatting with Kate Remington at WSHU in Connecticut a few weeks ago. Two big topics were covered, including his long relationship with the Stamford Symphony Orchestra (now Orchestra Lumos) and also his 30 year history with the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival. Kate was a host at Vermont Public radio for many years and that is how they met. Please enjoy this lively conversation.
Performance Today Broadcast - February 19th, 2020
The festival was thrilled to have the 2017 Ravel Piece en forme de Habanera performance by Peter Sanders and Adrienne Kim featured during the second hour of Performance Today in February of 2020. Thank you to PT for including the festival again! The performance is available to be viewed on YouTube.
RANDOLPH - The Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival closed its 30th season Saturday with a performance that illustrated why this is one of the best chamber music festivals in Vermont. All but one of the five players have been regulars at the summer music making at Randolph's Chandler Center for the Arts for many years. And what made their performance Saturday of two French masterpieces and an intriguing Polish 20th century work made so compelling - and irresistible - was that they were loving it.
The major work on the program was César Franck's Piano Quintet, a grand work that exploits the sound of the instruments. There is also something unique about how the French write for piano and strings, where the piano moves from one of the ensemble to concerto-like soloist and back as it does here. The result is an ever-changing sound palette that creates luscious drama.
Pianist Mika Sasaki, a newcomer to the festival this year, joined violinists Arturo Delmoni and Michael Roth, violist Katarzyna Bryla-Weiss and cellist Peter Sanders in a cohesive and rich performance. Clarity and comfortable virtuosity marked the opening and closing allegros, with Sasaki's sparkling sound complementing or cutting through the expressive and controlled passion of the strings. That contrasted the tenderness of the slow movement, a poetic lento. It was a grand performance.
In 1993, Sanders, who had spent many summers in Randolph, brought a bunch of his colleagues in the New York City Ballet Orchestra to play chamber music together summers at Chandler. The personnel for this particular have been regulars for many years. Delmoni, the de facto leader of the ensemble, one of the finest virtuoso violinists in the country, has an overt expressiveness that always seems just right. Sanders, over the years, has developed a strong musical personality, that complements Delmoni's.
Bryla-Weiss has the same expressiveness as Delmoni, with great warmth. (After this performance, she left to take a position with the San Francisco Symphony, but promises to return for the festival next summer.) Roth too has real expressiveness and shows his versatility by performing on both violin and viola. Sasaki, the newcomer, managed to hold her own, in fact, embraced the musicality of her new colleagues.
Sasaki had the pivotal role in Gabriel Fauré's Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15, a lighter work than the Franck. Delmoni, Roth on viola, and Sanders restrained their passion, just barely, so that Sasaki could deliver the poetry, particularly in the slow movement, Adagio. This mix of colors and poetry resulted in sound of French grandeur.
In real contrast, Bryla-Weiss and Sanders joined in Witold Lutoslawski's fascinating 1926 Bucolics for Viola and Cello. These little gems range from song-like to dance-like to a lament to the final drive, but they all incorporated that familiar knotty 20th century harmonic language and rhythm that gave them their spicy character. These fine players, comfortable in that language, delivered them as musical storytelling.
The key to the success of the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival's longevity is instrumentalists who love playing together - and that we get to listen.
Pulp Fiction performed Jeffrey Zeigler, Peter Sanders, Hannah Holman, Chris Finckel (Arrangement: Bernard Amrani) on August 15, 2015 at Chandler Center for the Arts as part of the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival.
Unless otherwise listed, our concerts take place at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, Vermont. Click here for a map to Chandler Center for the Arts.
The festival is a non-profit organization with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS.
Click here to download a donation form and help support the CVCMF.
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"...Saturday's Central Vermont Chamber Festival concert Chandler Center for the Arts had me babbling by intermission. When Peter Sanders told his listeners from the stage that they don't know how lucky they are, he was dead right. Except that I think they do know how lucky they are. He's lucky, too."
- Peter Goodman, as appeared in the HERALD, Randolph, Vermont, August 27, 2009. (read the full review here)
Rehearsal, season #1 on Chandler stage - 1993
Adela Peña - violin, Aloysia Friedmann - viola, Peter Sanders - cello, Steven Masi - piano
"Stanziano delivered the dramatic washes of notes with clarity and virtuosity, while Delmoni and Sanders plied the dramatic lines with passion. They also responded to the subtle moments with sensitivity, making this a grand - and fun - performance."
"The Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival has become a welcome tradition in Randolph and the central Vermont area, and Saturday's impassioned high level illustrates just why."
"Chamber music festival opens with finesse, spirit. Just when you think you've heard enough chamber music for the summer, someone comes along and performs the Mozart Clarinet Quintet - beautifully, in this case - and the passion returns immediately."
