Allison Caroll Brings Talent From Far and Away

For 95 years, the Middlebury Performing Arts Series has brought world-class performers inside the “Middlebury bubble.” The series has showcased Yo-Yo Ma, Louis Armstrong, the Von Trapp family, Pablo Casals, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo (just to name a few). As the director of the Performing Arts Series, Allison Coyne Carroll is now largely responsible for the logistics behind bringing these talented performers to this remote pocket of Vermont.

There’s a lot that goes into the preparation of each performance, as well as the execution of the performance itself. Carroll described to me the preliminary arrangements that she had to make for the arrival of the Elias String Quartet, who performed here last Saturday.

“We first chose the performers and their program. I, then, issued their contract. Because they’re foreign performers, we also had to be concerned with their visas. There are also taxation concerns with foreign artists, so I’m involved with that as well. Once the contracts have all been signed, we then get out the word about the artist. We make sure that they’re in our arts calendar. [As we get] closer to the performance, there are posters around campus and things of that nature.”

Carroll is also responsible for ensuring that the artists feel comfortable and can adequately prepare for their performance.

“We make sure they have hotel rooms and taxis from the airport, and then here in the Center for the Arts, we make sure they have rehearsal spaces. The performers send me the bare bones of their program, but we also try to flesh it out with some program notes and biographical information.”

The performance itself, though, is produced by the efforts of the many staff members who make all events at the Center for the Arts possible.

Carroll said, “We have a great staff here at the center for the arts — our box office and the rest of the administrative staff, the technical director for the concert hall – we all work in concert [pun intended] to make sure the event goes smoothly when the patrons are here.”

The process of selecting the performers involves a lot of communication and planning. Ideas for new performers can come from the artists themselves, from their agents, or from the music department’s faculty members who attend conferences and concerts.

“When these artists are in town, we’ll often take them out after the concert. They can be a great source of inspiration; oftentimes they’re coaching up-and-coming artists or they’ve had the opportunity to work with another artist that they think would be a good fit for us. I’ve also been meeting with the music faculty and planning for next year to make sure that we’re bringing musicians that are going to help compliment the curriculum.”

One performance that stood out to Carroll in her time at Middlebury (and one that still brings a smile to her face) was that of Dubravka Tomsic, who is performing again at the College in April of this year.

“Her last recital here, she’d had extensive travel and she was tired, but she gave this tremendous recital and got such a response from the audience.  The mood when she came off-stage, you could see it, she had completely shifted and was just elated from the response she got from our audience.”

There are some upcoming performers this spring that music-lovers (and everyone else) won’t want to miss.  An example of coordination between Carroll and curricula of academic departments, the Nile River Project concert will kick off a week of discussing the cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental issues surrounding the Nile river basin. Later on this semester, pianist Paulis, “one of most lauded pianists in the world” according to Carroll, will perform to close this year’s series.

Carroll suggested that the positive response to music she is able to experience on a regular basis is something inherent in the Vermont lifestyle.

“For being such a small, rural, intimate atmosphere, Vermont has a pretty lively arts scene. The arts have a very important place in the daily lives of Vermonters and in the cultural life of Vermont, and I think that’s part of the quality of life that draws people to live here. It’s part of why I came back here and remain here with my family.”