The Vermont Symphony Orchestra, based in Burlington, has announced the upcoming retirement of ROBERT DE CORMIER as director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus, which he helped to found in 1993 and has directed since its debut in May 1994. He will lead the VSO and Chorus on January 25 in Burlington, and on January 26 in Rutland, in a 20th-anniversary program featuring Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. A graduate of The Juilliard School, De Cormier has served as music director for the vocal trio Peter, Paul and Mary, and for seventeen years directed the New York Choral Society. He toured the U.S. with his professional group the Robert De Cormier Singers; founded the vocal ensemble Counterpoint; conducted on Broadway and in the opera house; and served as conductor and arranger for Harry Belafonte. His original compositions include choral, Broadway, and ballet scores. A resident of Vermont for the past 40 years, De Cormier was awarded the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts by the Vermont Arts Council in 2002 in recognition of his 80th birthday.
Posted January 7, 2014
