BRATTLEBORO — Zon Eastes, former conductor of the Windham Orchestra, turned 60 this summer. And, like many reaching this milestone, he decided to throw a party.
The rarity here is that this party is also a concert.
“I am fulfilling a promise I made to my parents some years back to conduct a special concert of music I love,” says Eastes, “with an orchestra made up of friends I have known and loved over the years.”
The Brattleboro Music Center's 2014-15 concert season kicks off Saturday, Sept. 13, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at Centre Congregational Church with this special performance.
Eastes has gathered 29 accomplished musicians, all of whom he has collaborated with during his 30 years in Vermont. Four of the musicians are friends of nearly 40 years.
The orchestra's musicians include current and former BMC faculty members, members of the former New England Bach Festival Orchestra, and colleagues from as far afield as North Carolina.
“I put a call out and I'm quite excited because response has been very positive,” says Eastes. “The orchestra and soloists will be first-rate, and I look forward to presenting a wonderful concert to local audiences. With so many old friends getting together, it really will be like a party.”
Eastes programmed the concert with all the pieces he loves - and has played often.
“Nothing is too complicated or intricate for these musicians, who were quickly put together into what we in the business call a pick-up orchestra,” conductor Eastes explains. Even if they are such a new group and will have little time to rehearse - and some do not know each other - they all know the music. This will not be just a job, but rather an evening of joyous music making.”
The chamber orchestra will perform Symphony in F minor, No. 49 by Haydn, and Symphony in A Major, No. 29 by Mozart.
Violinists Peggy Spencer and Kathy Andrew will perform Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, and cellists Alice Robbins and Timothy Merton will perform Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor.
Spencer served more than 20 years as concertmaster and solo violinist of the New England Bach Festival Orchestra under the direction of Blanche Moyse. Andrew is assistant concertmaster of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, concertmaster of Opera North, and co-concertmaster of the Burlington Chamber Orchestra.
Robbins was a founding member of Concerto Castello, an international quintet specializing in the music of the early 17th century. Merton has performed with the English Baroque Soloists, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and is artistic director of the Sarasa Ensemble.
Eastes is producing the concert himself. All money raised will benefit Brattleboro Music Center.
“BMC is the reason I originally came to the area,” he says. “I started teaching cello and then did many other things with the school.”
Some years ago, Eastes's parents gave him a sum of money with which to do whatever he wanted.
“I told them that I was going to use the money to produce that special concert I promised them,” Eastes explains. “My father said I didn't have to use it for that, but I told him I wanted to. Yet as things often go in this world, I kept postponing putting the concert together.”
Eastes's mother died four years ago. His father died earlier this year.
“With that, and some other things, I figured if ever I was going to do it now is the time,” he adds. “I think this concert is a nice way to remember my parents.”
Eastes has conducted orchestras and choruses in the Northeast and on the West Coast. He conducted the Windham Orchestra for more than 20 years. For nearly two decades he's taught cello and coached chamber music at the BMC.
For shorter stretches he's also served on the music faculties of Amherst, Dartmouth, and Keene State colleges. Eastes directs outreach and advancement at the Vermont Arts Council.
“Most people think if you work on the Vermont Art Council you give out grants,” he says. “I am not much involved in that aspect of it. I work on communications through outreach and advocacy. I also go to national conferences so that we are known by places like NEA.”
“Vermont Arts Council,” he explains, “is the only arts agency in the country that is both a nonprofit and part of the state government. To be precise, we are a nonprofit appointed by the government to do what we do.”
This position is full-time, so Eastes needs to spend a lot of time in Montpellier. Although he keeps his home in Guilford, he maintains an apartment in the state capital, where he lives half the week.
He says, “When I am in Guilford my life is quite rural. But my apartment in Montpelier is right in the center of the town, and it is rather like living in a small European city.”
Born and raised in Kansas, Eastes has lived in Guilford for more than 30 years. In 2006 he quit his positions as conductor of Windham Orchestra and staff leader at BMC to relocate to an island off Seattle to take a new job as executive director at the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council.
“The island was beautiful and the organization was great,” Eastes says. However, its financial support depended on the town government, and after the stock market crash of 2008 funding for the arts was slashed. In 2009, Bainbridge Island Arts disbanded - and Eastes found himself out of a job.
Although he had intended to leave Vermont for good, Eastes returned to the house he had kept in Guilford, where he remained basically unemployed until he landed the job with Vermont Arts Council in 2012.
“It was not a fun time,” he confesses.
Eastes' career is now back on track, but with his busy schedule he says he regrets that opportunities for making music are harder to come by.
“That is one reason I am so excited about this concert,” he says. “It gives me an occasion to conduct again, and this time with some of my closest friends. It's going to be a remarkable evening made up of wonderful musicians playing some of the world's best music.”