Vermont Symphony Orchestra

Biographies

Jaime Laredo, Music Director
Anthony Princiotti, Principal Guest Conductor
Robert De Cormier, Chorus Director

Jaime Laredo, Music Director

In more than forty years before the public, Jaime Laredo has excelled in the multiple roles of soloist, conductor, recitalist and chamber musician. Since his stunning orchestral debut at the age of eleven with the San Francisco Symphony, he has won the admiration and respect of audiences, critics and fellow musicians with his passionate and polished performances. That debut inspired one critic to write: 'In the 1920's it was Yehudi Menuhin; in the 1930's it was Isaac Stern; and last night it was Jaime Laredo.' His education and development were greatly

influenced by private coaching with such musicians as Josef Gingold, Pablo Casals, Ivan Galamian and George Szell. At the age of seventeen, Jaime Laredo won the prestigious Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition, launching his rise to international prominence.

The 2005/2005 season is in many ways a high point for Jaime Laredo. Mr. Laredo has accepted a chaired position at the Indiana University School of Music, to being in September 2005. Also this season, as he has for the past twenty-six years, Mr. Laredo will interweave solo and conducting dates with the dense chamber music schedule of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Winner of Musical America's Ensemble of the Year 2002.

Mr. Laredo is in demand worldwide as a conductor and soloist. He has been Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra since 1999 and is also the Artistic Director of the Brandenberg Ensemble. The 2005/2006 season sees him leading the Detroit Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, New York String Orchestra, and Virginia Symphony, as well as soloing with the St. Louis Symphony in October.

In past seasons Mr. Laredo's guest engagements included a summer 2004 return to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as conductor and soloist, helping to inaugurate the new shell, along with performance with all of America's major orchestras, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia, with such conductors as Barenboim, Mehta, Ozawa, Slatkin, Colin Davis and great conductors of the past, such as Ormandy, Leinsdorf, Stokowski, and Szell. Abroad, Mr. Laredo has performed as soloist and/or conductor with the London Symphony, the BBC Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Royal Philharmonic, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which he led on two American tours and in its Hong Kong Festival debut. He has received the Deutsche Schallplatten Prize and has been awarded seven Grammy nominations. He won the Grammy Award for a disc of Brahms Piano Quartets which he performed with his frequent chamber music collaborators Emanuel Ax, Isaac Stern and Yo-Yo Ma. Mr. Laredo's discs on CBS and RCA have included the complete Bach Sonatas with the late Glenn Gould and an Arabesque Recordings album of duos with his wife, cellist Robinson, featuring works by Handel, Kodaly, Mozart and Ravel.

As Artistic Director of New York's renowned Chamber Music at the Y series, Mr. Laredo has created an important forum for chamber music performances which has developed a devoted following. His stewardships of the annual New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall and International Violin Competition of Indianapolis have become beloved educational pillars of the string community. A principal figure at the Marlboro Music Festival in years past and more recently with the Aspen Music Festival, he is actively involved at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, and the Hollywood Bowl, as well as the festivals in Italy, Spain, Finland, Greece, Israel, Austria, Switzerland and England.

Jaime Laredo was born in Bolivia, and currently he and Ms. Robinson reside in Guilford, Vermont.

Anthony Princiotti, Principal Guest Conductor

Anthony Princiotti, Associate Conductor of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, also serves as Music Director and Conductor of the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra. In addition he is Music Director and Conductor of the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1993 to 1996, he was Director of Instrumental Music and Conductor at Amherst College.

As a guest conductor, Princiotti has appeared with the Vermont Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Sao Paolo State Symphony and the New England String Ensemble.

Mr. Princiotti began his musical training at the age of four, studying violin with his father. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1980 from the Juilliard School, where he studied violin with Oscar Shumsky and viola with William Lincer. As a graduate student at Juilliard, he studied conducting with Sixten Ehrling and Alfred Wallenstein. In 1987, Princiotti was the recipient of a conducting fellowship at Tanglewood where he studied with Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier and Seiji Ozawa. Princiotti received his Master of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music in 1991, and received his doctorate in 1999. At Yale, his principal teachers were Eleazar de Carvalho and Günther Herbig. He was also a recipient of the Marshall Bartholomew Scholarship, the Charles Ives Scholarship, and the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize.

Between 1981 and 1987, Mr. Princiotti was first violinist with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, a New Hampshire-based ensemble that specialized in the chamber music repertoire for piano and strings. As a member of Apple Hill, he performed 70-80 concerts annually throughout the United States and taught every summer at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. During this time, he also served as the music director and conductor of the Brandeis University Orchestra. His other interests include running, hiking, tai-chi, and motorcycles. He currently resides in Walpole, New Hampshire.

Robert De Cormier, Chorus Director

Since its debut in May 1994, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus has won unqualified praise from audiences and critics alike. The mastermind behind the success of the VSO Chorus is noted choral conductor and arranger Robert De Cormier. Mr. De Cormier helped to found the VSO Chorus in 1993, and remains the director.

While De Cormier has been a Vermont resident for over 30 years, his reputation is known beyond the state. He acted as music director of the New York Choral Society for 17 years. Under his leadership the group became renowned for its high standard of excellence in choral singing and unique programming.

A graduate of Juilliard School of Music, Mr. De Cormier's other conducting engagements have taken him from Broadway and opera to numerous concert tours throughout the U.S. and Canada with his own professional group the Robert De Cormier Singers. He spent many years as conductor and arranger for Harry Belafonte and has been music director for the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary for the past 20 years.

He has written several works ranging from choral to ballet to Broadway scores. His cantata, The Jolly Beggars, based on the poetry of Robert Burns, premiered in New York to critical acclaim. His ballet score, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder, is in the active repertoire of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. His choral works Legacy, Four Sonnets to Orpheus, Shout for Joy, and Under a Greenwood Tree, were premiered at Carnegie Hall by the New York Choral Society.

His television credits include a three-part series of Choral Folk Songs for the BBC and an Emmy award-winning special with Harry Belafonte. For PBS, Mr. De Cormier was the choral director of a special starring Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle, conducted by James Levine, as well as "Christmas at Carnegie" with Kathleen Battle and Frederica Von Stade, conducted by Andre Previn.

He has served on the New York State Council on the Arts and been a member of the Choral Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2000 Mr. De Cormier established Counterpoint, a nine-member vocal ensemble made up of VSO Chorus members. In 2002, he was honored by the New York Choral Society at a concert in New York's Carnegie Hall, and was presented the Governor’s Award by the Vermont Arts Council, in recognition of his 80th birthday.