[Excerpts from:]
Kate's gift

As she departs the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Kate Tamarkin leaves a legacy beyond the music

Jim Lowe, Staff Writer
The Sunday Rutland Herald
and The Sunday Times Argus
March 14, 1999

 
 ...When Kate Tamarkin departs after her final concert on Saturday, she will leave an orchestra with almost double the annual audience, with many sold-out concerts, and finances that other orchestras of its size would envy.
     Nobody argues that Tamarkin did it all; credit goes to the new and creative VSO management as well.  And Tamarkin's musical abilities, many musicians and managers in the VSO say, weren't entirely the cause either.
     "Kate's contributions were not just limited to her musical abilities, which were strong," said VSO Board Chairwoman Ann Cooper, "but the fact that she was able to make the music and the orchestra something that people could relate to individually and buy into.  Within a year of her coming, Kate was one of the best-known people in Vermont."
     "She's really created a sense among Vermonters of making the VSO their orchestra," agreed Eugene Kim, the VSO's principal cellist since 1995.  "She's been able to pull in a lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily go to these concerts."
     The VSO management, under then-Executive Director Thomas Philion, made Tamarkin very visible, representing her as an informal rather than a stuffy personality.  She did everything from posing for publicity shots in a VSO sweatshirt to singing folk music on the stage of the Flynn Theatre with popular Elmore singer-songwriter Jon Gailmore.
     Tamarkin turned up just about every place she could to promote the VSO, including public appearances, radio and television, and her warm personality seemed to win over reserved Vermonters.
     "Crowds love her," said Hilary Hatch, longtime first violinist and author of the orchestra's program notes. "She really knows how to engage an audience.  We're really going to miss that."
     Tamarkin was named music director in the spring of 1991. ...A nationwide search, ...resulted in four finalists for the conductor's position, each of whom conducted an audition program for audiences around the state.  Tamarkin, then associate conductor of the Dallas Symphony, was chosen unanimously by the orchestra's musicians and board.