Jaime Laredo is known worldwide in the 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.

Mr. Laredo won the Queen of Brussels Competition when he was 17. His music education and development were greatly influenced by private coaching and public performing with such musicians as Josef Gingold, Pablo Casals, Ivan Galamian, and George Szell.

Mr. Laredo has performed with orchestras including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia, and with such conductors as Barenboim, Mehta, Ozawa, Slatkin, and Colin Davis. He tours constantly as soloist or conductor, appearing with orchestras all over the world.

During the 1997/98 season, Mr. Laredo appeared at the Taipei Festival, at Carnegie Hall, and with the New Jersey, Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Florida Philharmonic Orchestras. His chamber music concerts included a tour with Emmanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma and Isaac Stern, and concerts in 25 American cities with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.

Mr. Laredo has recorded over forty discs and has received a Grammy Award and the Deutsche Schallplatten Prize.

Born in Bolivia, Mr. Laredo has risen to the status of national hero in that country: a stadium was named after him in La Paz and a commemorative set of postage stamps was issued in his name. Now a United States citizen, Mr. Laredo continues to receive high honors in this country. He has performed at the United Nations and the White House and was awarded the Handel Medallion, New York City's highest cultural honor.

Mr. Laredo and his wife, cellist Sharon Robinson, make their home in Guilford, Vermont.

Anthony Princiotti, newly appointed Associate Conductor of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, is a native of Connecticut. In addition to his leadership position at the VSO, Mr. Princiotti has recently been named music director of the New Hampshire Philharmonic and in 1992, he was appointed acting music director and conductor of the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, a position that became permanent in March of 1993. He has also served as Assistant Conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra and, from 1993 to 1996, as 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 Norfolk Festival Chamber Orchestra. This season he returned to the podium of the Vermont Symphony, conducting a series of eight Summer Festival Tour concerts throughout the state as well subscription concerts last season in the orchestra's home base of Burlington.

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 1998. At Yale, his principal teachers were Eleazar de Carvalho and Günther Herbig.

Between 1981 and 1987, 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. He currently resides in Walpole, New Hampshire.

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.

Mr. De Cormier's most recent recording, The Jolly Beggars, was released on the Arabesque label in May of this year. Other recordings include three Christmas albums on Arabesque, the Kodaly Missa Brevis and Vaughan Williams' Mass in G Minor on Vox Turnabout, Songs of Liberty for the Book-of-the-Month Club, as well as Carmina Burana for Newport Classics, Paul Alan Levi's Mark Twain Suite and De Cormier's Legacy and Four Sonnets to Orpheus for Centaur, and an album of Christmas music with Jessye Norman for Phillips.

His television credits include a three-part series of Choral Folk Songs for the BBC and an Emmy award-winning special with Harry Belafonte. More recent credits include "Christmastide" with Jessye Norman for Thames TV, broadcast from Ely Cathedral, and for PBS a holiday concert with Peter, Paul & Mary. Also for PBS, Mr. De Cormier was the choral director for a combined concert, television special and recording 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.

In 2000 Mr. De Cormier established the eleven member professional vocal ensemble, Counterpoint. Following the groups' debut concert Jim Lowe, critic for the Times-Argus wrote " . . . a cohesive ensemble, able to perform a varied repertoire with style and understanding. If this is just the beginning, Counterpoint is truly a welcome addition to the Vermont music scene." He has served on the New York State Council on the Arts and been a member of the Choral Panel of the National Endowment of the Arts.

In 2002 the Vermont Arts Council awarded Mr. De Cormier the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, an honor bestowed upon a Vermont artist who has achieved national or international stature in his or her chosen art form. The ceremony, which was held in the State House Chambers, featured a tribute by his long-time friend and associate in the music publishing business, John McClure, former director of the Masterworks Department at Columbia Records. The event also included a special performance by Counterpoint, the nine-member professional vocal ensemble which Robert directs.