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of the arts
Conductor, Composer, Activist: VSO Chorus Leader Robert De Cormier Steps Down B y A my L I LLy
SEVENDAYSVt.com 01.15.14-01.22.14 SEVEN DAYS 24 STATE OF THE ARTS
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Robert De Cormier
II veteran recovering in a Staten Island hospital, De Cormier began singing in the nascent Congress of Industrial Organizations’ labor chorus. “But the director took me out af ter a rehearsal and said, ‘Don’t be stupid. Apply to Juilliard.’” De Cormier went on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the
for 17 years; and founded Vermont’s only professional singing group, counterpoint , among other highlights. Through it all, De Cormier f ound ways to raise social awareness through music. He collaborated with the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, di rected the Jewish Young Folksingers and specialized in music of the oppressed, such as Af rican American spirituals, as an “attempt to make the world better,” as he puts it. “His passion, his love f or the music, his causes — the Holocaust, slavery, bullying — are all of a piece,” says eleanor l ong , the VSO’s manager. So, too, was De Cormier’s choice to commute practically the length of Vermont to teach a class at Saint Michael’s College called “Songs of Resistance: Music in Struggle” at the age of 86. “The students didn’t know anything at all conservatory and became a prolific com- about the subject matter,” he recalls. “It poser-arranger in styles ranging f rom was really good to teach them.” Broadway to classical to Af rican. He A sense of social justice also under directed the f olk group Peter, Paul and lay his decision to f ound Counterpoint Mary and arranged and composed f or in 2007. Recognizing that many of the Harry Belaf onte. He scored a ballet f or singers who had joined the all-volunteer the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater VSO Chorus were highly trained and that’s still in the group’s active repertoire; deserved to be paid, De Cormier lob directed the New York Choral Society bied the VSO f or years to establish a COu RTESy OF VERmOn T SympHOny O RCHESTRA
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hen outgoing choral con ductor r oBert de cor Mier was considering which two pieces to program for his final concert next week with the ver Mont syMphony orchestra chorus , he knew one had to be Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. The 92-year-old choral conductor and the group he f ounded 20 years ago perf ormed the work at their first concert, and 17 of those who sang it that day are still members. The other piece, however, De Cormier lef t to a vote. The 102 singers voted against his first choice — British composer Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time , a secular oratorio written in response to Kristallnacht and first performed in 1944 — and instead chose another of the conductor’s f avorites, Brahms’ Requiem. De Cormier’s open, democratic ap proach is no surprise to those who have known this beloved, renowned musi cian, a full-time Vermont resident since 1977. His passion for social justice is the unifying thread of his long, fearless life. In f act, he recalls during a birthday phone call f rom his home in Belmont, “I thought I might be a labor organizer.” The idea formed when, as a World War
Short tA k ES o N Film: ciNEmA SiNcérité Like your movies with sides of earnestness and activism? It’s time once again for the annual Mountain t op Fil M Festival , which showcases narrative and documentary films devoted to human rights issues. Some of the seven selections in the fest, which runs Friday through Thursday, January 17 to 23, have already popped up in Vermont’s multiplexes or at last fall’s ver Mont international Fil M Festival . But here’s a second chance to see them in the mad River Valley, at Waitsfield’s Big picture t heater — starting with the biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, which screens every night of the fest. (Idris Elba of “The Wire” plays the late South African leader.) While Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station may not win Oscars, critics have consistently championed this film dramatizing the last day in the life of a young Bay Area man trying to
make a fresh start. It puts a human face on a real-life cause célèbre. With marriage equality again in the news, the documentary Bridegroom offers a searing reminder of why it matters. It tells the story of Shane Bitney Crone, a Californian who found himself barred from his dying lover’s hospital room, and then from his funeral, by relatives who refused to recognize their relationship. Four more docs foreground relations — some constructive, others toxic — between the developed and developing worlds. In Blood Brother, a young American devotes himself to helping HIV-positive orphans in India. Sweet Dreams is about Rwandan women working to heal their country — by opening its first ice cream parlor. In Rafea: Solar Mama, a Bedouin gets training to provide her remote village with solar power. A River Changes Course traces the long-term social and
environmental damage wrought by industry in Cambodia. In short, even if you wander into the theater a rebel without a cause, you’ll probably leave with one. Speaking of human-rights-themed cinema: In the 2013 documentary Inequality for All, former u .S. secretary of labor Robert Reich makes his case for the destructive effects of America’s widening income gap. Vermont Sen. Bernie sanders wants you to see the movie, so he’s offering a free screening on January 26 at the palace 9 cine Mas , followed by a panel discussion with audience participation. The senator will be there to get your reactions to director Jacob Kornbluth’s film, which won the Special Jury prize last year at the Sundance Film Festival. When filmmakers seek out n oam Chomsky, it’s usually because they