A reprise from Kate [Excerpts]
Former music director returns as special guest

By: Jim Lowe, Staff Writer
The Sunday Times Argus, Sunday, March 16, 2003

   Kate is returning. And she is bringing with her a new work by a Vermont composer that she premiered in California.
   Kate Tamarkin, the popular Vermont Symphony Orchestra music director of the previous decade, will return to Vermont this week to guest-conduct the VSO. ...
   I'm really looking forward to it," Tamarkin said in a recent telephone interview from her Minnesota home.
   "I went back last spring to conduct the Vermont All-State Orchestra. It was a blast. And I'm very much looking forward to working with the VSO again and seeing where they're at. I'm assuming there are new faces, and some familiar faces too."
   Tamarkin became the third music director of the VSO in 1991... During the next eight years, Tamarkin's music-making abilities and warm public personality,... made her a popular figure statewide and the public face of the VSO, even dubbed the organization's "soccer mom." While professional orchestras around the country were going under, the VSO was selling out concerts and expanding.
   "The whole state loved her, and still loves her," said Alan Jordan, current VSO executive director. "She holds a special place in people's hearts, and she did wonderful things for the Vermont Symphony."
   Tamarkin left the VSO in 1999 to become music director of the Monterey (Calif.) Symphony, a post she continues to hold. At present, she is also doing a fair amount of guest conducting. Last year, she returned to the Dallas Symphony, where she was associate conductor form 1989 to 1994, to conduct youth and family concerts. (Like many conductors, she has held more than one position concurrently.)
   Two weeks ago, Tamarkin was in North Carolina with the Carolina Chamber Symphony. Last week, it was the Edmonton Symphony in Alberta. And in May, she goes to China to conduct the Shanghai Symphony. [Web Editor Note: This concert has been postponed until 2004]
   ...Tamarkin is returning with a bit of Vermont as well, a new piece of music composed for the Monterey Symphony by a Vermont composer.
   "I think our program is interesting - it's difficult," Tamarkin said.
   Benington composer Allen Shawn was commissioned by the California orchestra to write a work commemorating the 100th birthday of John Steinbeck, who was born in 1092 in Salinas, a community the Monterey Symphony serves.
   "We thought to ourselves, 'How do you honor a writer?'" Tamarkin said. "Well, let's get a text, and let's get a living writer to write about writing."
   Tamarkin choose Shawn, with whom she had worked while at the VSO, to write the music. He set the original text, created by a writer who wishes to remain anonymous, and the result was "And in the air these sounds...," a 30-minute work for bass-baritone speaker and orchestra. Tamarkin conducted its premiere last season in California, and she will perform it with the VSO on Saturday's program
   ... The orchestra part is substantial and difficult.
   "He uses the orchestra carefully and sensitively," Tamarkin said. "It's the kind of piece where a person needs to not come in with preconceived notions about what it will sound like and just go for the ride. And I think, if they do that, it's very rewarding."
   ... Guest conducting can be quite different from leading one's own orchestra, Tamarkin has found.
   ..."It's like a clean slate," she said. "You just get up and deal with the music, and, in a way, that's very nice. ...'"It can be a very pleasant experience."
   ..."One of the difficulties is you choose a program, or are guided to choose a program, without any sense of the strengths or weaknesses of the orchestra. ... It's hard. ...

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