Play Every Town: Hyde Park

In May 2022 composer-pianist David Feurzeig embarked on Play Every Town: 252 free concerts in each of Vermont’s 252 towns to confront climate change through the power of community and music. With this project David will become the first musician to perform in every Vermont municipality. He is traveling in his solar-charged electric vehicle throughout the state, offering free concerts to bring attention to the interrelated issues of climate and community, and to call into question the normality of long-distance touring and travel, while bringing the joy of music to his audiences.

“I want to support Vermont’s local communities with live performance in village centers and downtowns, while fulfilling UVM’s mission to serve as a resource for the whole state.”
Feurzeig, a professor of music at UVM since 2008, specializes in genre-defying recitals that bring together music of an astonishing variety of musical styles, from ancient and classical to jazz, avant-garde, and popular traditions. These striking juxtapositions, peppered with informative and humorous commentary, create eye- and ear-opening programs that will change how you hear all kinds of music.

Each program is locally tailored. The Hyde Park concert is in the recently revived old Gihon Valley Grange Hall, which the community has been working to make into an anchor gathering place for North Hyde Parke. The concert will include works by Claude Debussy from 1910 to celebrate the year the hall was built; Liz Courtney Schroeter, who has been instrumental in the hall’s renewal, will join David for Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in the Sand”. Joe Hollander’s “Two-Key Rag” will represent 1916, the year the Hall’s piano was built. Like every performance on the tour, this one will include its own unique Scarlatti keyboard sonata: Sonata no. 43 for this forty-third concert in the project. Other solo pieces will round out the program.