Vermont
Composers
Consortium

Composers from the Consortium are featured regularly on
Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar
which can be heard every Saturday from 2:30 to 4:30 pm on WGDR-FM 91.1

Read Consorting, newsletter of the Consortium.

The Consortium of Vermont Composers was founded in 1988 to get new music out there from in here. About 250 composers live and work in Vermont, with music ranging from the straightforward song to the electronic edge. The Consortium publishes Consorting, a bimonthly newsletter of musical ideas, jousts and confusion. Becoming a member of the Consortium means forking over a small bag o' coins -- contact the Consortium. Large sums of money, artistic contributions, lip-slathering commissions and general bewilderment are also welcome. The Consortium of Vermont Composers can be reached for recordings, Midi and .wav files, CDs, etc.

In the meantime, watch this space for upcoming announcements of new music concerts and festivals.

News...

Consortium Meeting

January 18, 1998: A meeting of the Vermont Composers Consortium was held on Sunday, January 18, 1998, at 1 P.M. at Dennis Báthory-Kitsz's house in Northfield, Vermont. Read the minutes.

Call for Electroacoustic Music

January 18, 1998: For a new program of music for galleries, restaurants, and other public spaces, we are seeking recordings of electroacoustic and electronic music. This is not acoustic music merely rendered into Midi form for lack of instrumentalists, but rather music conceived of for electroacoustic purposes. It may include live performers. Music must be in a high quality format, and may be on DAT or audio CD, or in .wav, .aiff or .au format readable by PCs. (Mac users please convert them or send them as CDDA for audio extraction). This is an open call, with items received reviewed at our next meeting in May. Send them to Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, 176 Cox Brook Road, Northfield, Vermont 05663.

Letter from the President

November 21, 1997:

Dear CVC Member,

It is 1998, another year for the composers and musicians of the CVC during which we hope to create some real opportunities for us and our music to be heard and appreciated.

Consortium Web Site and Bulletin Board: The CVC Web Page is a site of increasing popularity. Those of us who are connected to the Web have a particular advantage over those who are not, in that there is the Newsletter provided at the CVC site, as well as a Bulletin Board on which to share ideas, discuss upcoming projects, and to generally let it be known who we are, individually, as well as what we need to accomplish as a group. If you haven't availed yourself of the BB yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so. Let your interests be known to us, whether you are a composer, instrumentalist, or just want to know what is happening in music in and around Vermont.

CVC Chat Room: Also from the CVC site, you can access the Chat Room for CVC members, with a special Chat session now meeting on Sunday evenings at 8:00 EST. This fun and usually pell-mell -- exchange is a fast-paced flow of ideas between old and new friends of the CVC. Every Chat session so far has produced information helpful to us.

Call for Scores: New due date!!: March 1, 1998. Members are invited to submit scores for up to four wind instruments, preferably including Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and/or Flute. Instrument choice is due to players wanting to participate, The pieces can be of any length; however, we are making a special effort to try to provide short pieces for performances at public locations, such as art galleries, museums, libraries, restaurants, and other such places. The idea here is to make CVC members' music available to be heard by the public in an informal setting... to get our music out there. If you think that you have something or want to write something which would fit well in this context, now is your chance. Send something enjoyable.

If your manuscript is in Midi form, send it as an attachement to Dennis Báthory-Kitsz and he will put it on the site.

If you're writing music by hand, send it in via snail-mail and we will see if we can get it into Midi form, and then get it performed -- again, if we can find the players and the place. But we have to have the music first. Show us the Music! Our plans are to archive all the music performed with the CVC, and if there is enough interest and we can find the financing, some will get included in an annual CD which we hope to offer for sale. But that is another story. More on this later.

Membership Dues: Your membership renewal for 1998 is now due -- $25.00 for full membership. If you plan on using the Web Site, please contribute to the cause.

Other Web Sites of Interest: If you havenšt yet, look into these sites: La Musique Petite and The Classical Midi Archives.

We are excited about the changes with the CVC and the opportunities we now have. All of us are looking forward to hearing from you soon. Let us know how we can best work for you.

Best wishes for a fine upcoming new year,
Timothy K. Price
President: The Consortium of Vermont Composers

Midi Files

November 21, 1997: The Vermont Composers chat room also includes a listening page. Midi files of composers' works are placed here for listening and discussion. Check it out by clicking here. Use of the listening page is fairly self-explanatory, and files are in General Midi format.

Bulletin Board

October 26, 1997: The Vermont Composers new Bulletin Board is up and running! Among the current topics is the proposal for a Composer Award and a Consortium CD. Check it out by clicking here. Use of the board is fairly self-explanatory, but additional help files will be posted.

Composer Chat

September 22, 1997: A composer chat room has been created. It requires a Java-compatible browser (such as recent versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer), and is frequently (but not always) available. If the chat room is available, you can reach it by clicking here. Help files are available.

Special note about the Bulletin Board and Chat Room: The Consortium's website is hosted by Malted/Media on server space rented from Sovernet, Inc., in Bellows Falls, Vermont. However, Sovernet, like many Internet service providers, does not permit its servers to be used for running computer programs, only for web 'documents'. Our Chat Room and Bulletin Board both contain computer programs, and as such are hosted on the Malted/Media private server, which is actually a Consortium member's personal computer at home. This is why you get a "Moving to Malted/Media Private Server" before reaching the Chat Room or Bulletin Board. This is also why the Chat Room and Bulletin Board may occasionally be down ... no one is home to re-boot if the computer crashes or becomes disconnected from the network. One day technology will make all this fancy footwork unnecessary. In the meantime, bear with it and realize that our Vermont Composers Consortium is one of the first in the country to use these technologies!

Next Consortium Meeting

January 18, 1998: The next meeting of the Consortium of Vermont Composers will be on Sunday,May 17, 1998, at 1 P.M. More details will be posted on location and directions.

New Issue of Consorting

December 20, 1997: Invitation to submit wind scores, Don Stewart's advice on copyright, David Gunn's thoughts on Midi, Bill Harris's thoughts on personal music, Dennis Báthory-Kitsz's advice on web music, Kalvos & Damian updates, news, notes and opportunities. Read the Consorting newsletter.

Old News...

Previous issues of Consorting

Minutes of Meetings

September 21, 1997: The board members made plans for the Consortium archive and jazz programs. Read the minutes.
April 20, 1997: The board members looked at the past history and made plans for the future. Read the minutes.
January 5, 1997: The board members looked at the recent FourScore festival and made plans for the future. Read the minutes.
January 14, 1996: The board members ate various food and made plans for a concert series in the future. Read the minutes.