 Good evening, everyone. And thank you so much for joining us on this chilly January evening for a program that we have entitled Happy Viennese New Year. So I will ask all of you, if any of you have seen the New Year's program that is put on annually by the Vienna Philharmonic and there's broad chance around the world, has anybody seen or heard of this program? See if she has out there, OK? So hopefully this program will sound familiar to you. And for those of you who have not seen or heard this program, you're in for a real treat because it's really a wonderful tradition in the Vienna Philharmonic to present a concert of light classical music on New Year's Day every year. The tradition of the New Year's program goes back to the 19th century. But the modern version of this Vienna Philharmonic program actually began in 1939. And what makes this program distinctive and unique is that it's not only light classical music, but these are programs that heavily feature music from the Strauss family dynasty. When I say Strauss, you may pick up Richard Strauss. It's not that Strauss, actually. It's Johann Strauss I, Johann Strauss II, Joseph Strauss, and Edward Strauss. Four Strausses that together created a trove of wonderful light classical music that is heard in concert halls to this day. Now, most of this music comes in the form of waltzes, or polkas, or marches, or in some cases, overtures. And the Vienna Philharmonic program consists primarily of the music of the Strauss family, but also other Viennese and German composers. But the tie that really binds is that this is all light and fun music. And really, these programs are terrific. I strongly recommend that you check these out. They're available on PBS. And you'll hear them on local radio as well. They're really wonderful programs. And they are the inspiration for the program that you're going to hear tonight. So that program back in 1939 that was led by Trondens Kraus, an Austrian conductor, began with the word that you are just about to hear, a work called Morgan and Bledger. It's a set of waltzes by Johann Strauss. Morgan and Bledger translates as morning journals or morning papers. So we're going to begin our Viennese program rather appropriately with the set of waltzes by Johann Strauss. I'm going to stand over here with percussionists. Hi, guys. A group who so often plays in elementary school gymnasiums for prisons or outdoors. It's lovely to be with you here tonight after con toys. We've had a lovely season so far, playing with our new conductor, who we've been having a lot of absolutely wonderful for this group. I'd love to see us grow and expand in a post-COVID time. I started with this group seven years ago. I think it is now. I sat right over there as a cellist. And I found this group at a time that I really needed it. While I was looking for a community, I had just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And I didn't know who to talk to about it. And I didn't know how to go forth in my life and live on a healthy way. And that's actually the point of this group is for those with mental health disorders and those that support them to come together and make art. And as you can hear just now, what ends up being made there is really special. The idea of our name, Me Too, which actually predates the ever important Me Too movement, is that a musician might come into the room and say, you know, I actually live with this problem that affects me day to day. And they might get that response. Me too, me as well, you know. I'll try to keep my remarks short tonight. I promise that I would. But there is a donation box out there on the table. And there's also a QR code you can scan in your program. We are a small nonprofit. We survive mostly on donations. So if you have it to give, we ask that you do so that we can keep making this awesome music and creating a stigma-free space for musicians and variety of members to enjoy. Thank you. So we are going to continue our program now with a polka. Actually, it's the first of three polkas that we're gonna present to you. As I mentioned, the most common forms for the music that the Strass family wrote was waltzes, polkas, marches, and overtures. Now, a lot of people think all polkas are creative, but what you're going to hear is that these three polkas that we're gonna play for you have very different tempos. They're played at different speeds and very different styles of music as well. This first one that we're going to play is called the Foyer Fest. More about that title in just a moment. And this is what the Strass is called a polka fonce is a French-style polka, which is a little bit slower, a little bit more stately in terms of the tempo and the presentation. Now, the title for your fest is the German term which translates into fireproof. And you might think, well, that seems like kind of an odd title for a polka. Well, the reason for that is that this work was commissioned by a company, an Austrian company, very successful in the 19th century at building fireproof safes. This is what they specialized in. And in fact, in honor of the 20,000th safe that they produced, the owner of the company went to the Strass family and said, would you write a piece of music in honor of this landmark? So the work that you're going to hear, I encourage you to get some special attention to the percussion section because you're gonna hear some really metallic sounds coming out of that section, in particular, Deb Gay is gonna be beating out some metal back there which is meant to suggest the sound of candles, which of course were so critical in the production of these fireproof safes. We hope that you enjoy Fulio Fest. Six years ago, I was living in a soap. Since that time, I've been a share of ups and downs. Came out as trans, and during that time I also moved out of the Silverhouse and got my life together fairly well now. I am recently coming out of a nervous breakdown and mine are impressed about this insight into the album. So it's been quite a journey for my Me Too these last six years, but it's been an evolution ever since. And Me Too has been a 4-mise Santa Fe and it's always been a pleasure to be here tonight to play with you, and thank you for those words. So we're gonna continue now with another polka. This one is a polka chanel, a fast polka. It's entitled Tritch Tratch. Now that name translates to chitchat. And it was written, it was inspired by, I guess you could say, the fact that Johann Strauss II knew that one of the qualities of Viennese society was the preaching for gossip. So this was something that was very much evident to anyone who was involved with Viennese society at the time, and it's really easy to imagine when you hear this music, which is so full of humor, all the whispers behind, behind, you know, gloves, plumped hands and fans as the Viennese society did indeed chitchat. Probably during the concert, they should have been listening to the music. We hope that you enjoy Tritch Tratch. That was a great normal life growing up. I was aware that some of my relatives had issues. Mental health issues had been exact. They didn't always seek help. But my immediate family seemed to be okay, and so it never occurred to me that I, in fact, might be at risk of the same things. So off I went to college, and in my first year, I had, but I didn't know that, was a panic attack. Oh my. Well, I was given some medication, but nobody gave me a diagnosis. So on I went, graduated from college, got a job, and then met my then husband on the TV, which precipitated something that I had never experienced before. I knew he was going to ask me to marry him. And every morning for a month, I would wake up with the worst panic attack. It's as if I was about to be run over by a freight train every morning, curled up in the field position, sobbing. I had to pull myself together after those episodes of good work. Finally, someone took me to see a counselor. I was put on some medication. Still wasn't given any diagnosis. So I thought, I'm fine. We got married, we're happy. We moved to Vermont. And things seemed to be great, but then we started having anxiety again, some depressed thoughts, but surely it was just a circumstance. Anyway, I continued my teaching career. And in 2016, a teacher at the middle school where I worked said, you know, my son plays percussion in the Me Too Orchestra, and they're looking for another percussionist. You play, don't you? And my first thought was, what's a Me Too? What kind of orchestra is that? Is that like, you know, avant-garde? Is that what it means? Well, I went not telling the current conductor that I hadn't played for 20 years, but you know. So I joined them and I was told about it's purpose. You know, it's a great group to support people with mental health challenges and those that support them. So here I am, those who we ignorant together thinking, that's great, I can support people. Not thinking that I had anything to say Me Too about. But finally, it felt more and more like I was standing on the other side of a pane of glass looking in at my fellow orchestra members. Something was missing. You may think by this side, ah, dad, how clueless can you get? But finally, I happened to look through my medical records and there it was. Aha, under my list of conditions, anxiety and depression. So Me Too has set me free from being in denial, but also from hiding the things that I struggle with. Me Too has been supportive. They have accepted me for who I am. And I can't say enough about everyone here. And a special thanks to Alex McGowan, who has always reached out to me and talked with me and with whom I've been able to share so many things. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that, dad. We continue now with the third of our three polkas. And this is one that is a little different than the previous two in that the title has nothing to do with how it was commissioned or what it's meant to represent, but actually has to do with the technique that the string players are going to use to make notes, make sounds in this music. It's called the pizzicato in polka. And every sound that you'll hear from the string players is not going to come from their bows. You may have noticed that they've already set their bows down. They're not holding bows anymore, but all the sounds are going to come from them plucking the strings on their instrument technique that is known by the Italian term pizzicato. So the only sounds you're going to hear from the strings are those flex sounds, but those aren't the only sounds you're going to hear in this music because we've got a percussionist back there who I think really wants to be a string player. He's going to horn in on the action here in the middle of the polka. But the string players, you know, Nathan, they don't seem to mind, so I think they're going to make you an honorary member of the string section for this one. So this is the pizzicato for me. An answer. Informal, of course. Just wondering if our crowd has any questions for me, for our conductor, for any of the performers about what we do or why we're here. And so I open that up to you all. You can also ask questions if you're bounding, but they'll have to shout. Where do you come from, Alex? Alex lives in East Calzone an hour and a half away. A lot of us are 20 to 40 minutes away from our rehearsal space, which is in Burlington, our conductor's 45 minutes away from our rehearsal space. Great question. Is it? Why is it music that brings us together? A couple of answers to that. One is it's to think that we all have in common. We all work vastly different jobs and have different lives and family lives, and a lot of us would never have crossed paths without the fact that we picked up an instrument at some point in our childhood or childhood, and that's what we had. And it's a specific kind of music. All of us wanted to do this thing, particularly, that there is a group this large in such a small town who had that musical pull, who had positive feelings artistically about orchestral music, is actually really amazing. You don't always get to see community orchestras like this in places where all of this is. So that's our connecting stream, is that we have the instruments, we practice them, and we do our first company. If we all get an encore at the end of the year, it's an encore. We do not have a play at an encore, we don't play at adults peek-a-boo, but we hope you do enjoy the songs we have left. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. One more time, Michael Colbert. So actually, you may not have realized this, but you gave me the perfect segue to describe the last two selections on this program. So we are about to play the beautiful blue, on the beautiful blue Dan Ube, is the full title, although people generalize the blue Dan Ube, followed by the Redskie March. These two pieces are always on-chorus on the Dan Ube program. Always within, there are usually three standard on-chorus, and these are usually two of those three. In fact, this piece is so beloved and so expected by the D&E's audiences that every time they play this, it starts during their quiet, it's interrupted by applause, because the audience is so excited, and they act like they're surprised, right? They know it happens every single year, but every year they get so excited they start applauding, so the conductor usually has to stop, turn around, acknowledge the applause, and there's a standard Austrian greeting that the conductor offers the audience when that happens. So as much as we want this concert to resemble one of those Vienna Philharmonic concerts, please don't feel like you can start clapping when you do this, all right? But this is undoubtedly Johann Strauss' most famous waltz on the beautiful Dan Ube. I'll offer a few more thoughts about your Detsk game when we get there, but first, Dan Ube. It's okay, he's a friend of mine. I'm sorry. On this lovely January evening, I hope you have enjoyed the program, and that we might see you again at another Vienna Philharmonic concert in the future. We're gonna wrap things up here with another one of the traditional on-chorus for a Vienna Philharmonic year's program. This is the Rudetsky March by Johann Strauss I. And this is a march that actually has a little bit of audience participation, so there is a lot of clapping that happens during this march, and the V&A's, they know, because they do the same every year, they kinda know when to clap and why not to clap. So I'm gonna help you guys, as I know for many of you, this is the first time, but it's not just that you're gonna clap, okay? There are a couple of other little bits of guidance I need to offer you as well. So it starts with a very light, genteel clapping, right? You know, these refined, Austrian's in their boiled, bold suits, you know? Very, very, very classy, just a very light clap. But then things get a little more bigger, so when you see me turn around and really give you this, that's when I wanna hear a little bit stronger clapping, all right? And the third cue, and this perhaps is the most important cue, is when you're not supposed to clap, okay? And you're gonna see me doing this, so when I turn around and give you the finger, that's when we stop clapping. But you're gonna come back in again when it's time. You'll figure this out, it's pretty easy to figure out, but I will help you along. We hope that you enjoy the Radeski March.