Vermont

Can a place still be a place if the place has no one living in it? Maybe it's an existential question, but Lewis, Vermont has a population of 0, and just because it exits on a map someone is going to play a concert there. Will you be there? 

Willie Nelson will tell you the town of his birthplace, Abbott, Texas has a constant population: as soon as a baby is born, a man leaves town. But what happened in Lewis, Vt.? The census taker didn't even live there. And if a baby was born there, it must have been in a moving ambulance and the birth was recorded in another town.

Lewis is a place mentioned in one of those inimitable A-Hed pieces by Betsy McKay in the WSJ, that tells of a pianist/composer who is embarking on a mission to give a concert in every one of Vermont's 252 communities. Vermont is considered the most rural of all states, not because it has the smallest population (it doesn't) but because its population lives in so many small communities. And there is no smaller community than Lewis.

David Feurzeig is a composer and pianist who has given performances all over the world. But now, the 59-year-old University of Vermont music professor has given up all that travel and taking his shoes off at airports for a goal of giving a performance in every one of Vermont's 252 communities, and that means Lewis, Vermont.

A piano is hardly as portable as say a guitar, or a violin. As such, David scouts out uprights and grand pianos at his proposed stops. This forces him to play on instruments that might need work, but he is hardly discouraged.

His plan for his Play Every Town project was to do this in 5 years, but that has now expanded to a 7 year goal. He started the project in 2022, and has so far played at 66 venues. In general, about a dozen to 145 people have turned out at each concert. He donates contributions at each concert to local environmental groups.

He customizes the playlist to match something about the locale he's playing in. "Steamboat Rag" got an airing in Fairlee where the first steamboat was launched. "Beets and Turnips" was tinkled out on an upright piano in Wardsboro to recognize where the state vegetable, the Gilfeather Turnip, was bred.

And lest you think Mr. Feurzeig is making these compositions up, you have only to search them out on iTunes and download any number of versions of these ditties played by various artists. I took a liking to "Steamboat Whistle", that toe-tapping number, complete with the sound effects of a steamboat whistle.  I expect to hear it next time my iPod gets played in the garage while woodworking in the winter. "Frog Legs Rag" is not bad either.

There are any number of links on the Internet to David Feurzeig and his music.  As you might expect, there are a lot of grey heads in his audience.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com