I was meeting with Brattleboro’s Town Manager, Patrick Moreland, to consider how to manage parking for TUNDI’s Wagner in Vermont Festival that is just weeks away. In an enthusiastic moment, wanting Patrick to understand the scope of my enthusiasm, I almost let the words, bringing Wagner to Vermont, out of my mouth.
I stopped myself. Yes, there is the fact that this is a clichéd expression. But more importantly, it just isn’t true to TUNDI. TUNDI is not bringing August’s large endeavor, two full-orchestra performances each of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, as well as multifarious workshops throughout the week, to Vermont. With over 70 musicians and singers involved, many are coming from a distance to participate in TUNDI’s Wagner in Vermont performances and workshops. But they also are not bringing Wagner to Vermont. August’s performances will be based on the very hard work and vision of TUNDI’s conductor and creative director, Hugh Keelan, and lead soprano and executive director, Jenna Rae who have been gathering resources and digging deep into Vermont as a community and a home to manifest these operatic works in and with the communities they are part of.
This distinction, I hope, begins to illustrate something that I have grown to understand, something that is essentially and, I think, uniquely TUNDI. TUNDI’s Wagner in Vermont gives everyone, from performers to audience members, Brattleboro business owners, those working at the Latchis Theater, opportunities, to build connection, to feel and express more, to examine ourselves and the meaning of what is happening in the world around us. TUNDI’S mission states that: We are dedicated to performing music that summons THE DEEPEST EMOTIONS AND THE MOST BURNING ISSUES OF BEING HUMAN so people can experience transcendence, interact with the music and artists, and engage in their own creativity.” This is how TUNDI sets out to fulfill this mission.
In 2017, when my then ten-year-old child was accepted into choral rehearsals preparing for performances of Turandot I drove them, expecting to relax into my own little bubble and the novel I brought with me. Each and every time, and there were many rehearsals, I found myself not reading but instead, fully captivated by the process before me. Over the weeks I watched choral members, principle singers, orchestra musicians, set and stage managers, all in mixed states of eagerness, experience, naïvité and anxiety, be encouraged to discover what they were capable of in terms of personal honesty and expression. Hugh and Jenna created an environment of self and collective revelation because they projected no fear for the outcome. They were rarely asking people to do something, be something, they were not. They were asking people merely to show up and uncover as they were able. Over many weeks I watched almost every participant who I had eyes on, discover themselves in ways that, in the end, did lead to breathtaking, collective performances that opened large Latchis audiences to their own feelings, to passions that, by the reports I got over and over, took the breath away.
It was becoming clear to me something different was happening, something very different from teaching or coaching or sculpting. I was observing a means of creating artistry with the clear intention to leave the artists uncolonized. So, I was not surprised when this was all the more the case when my child became involved in what manifested as TUNDI’s lauded 2019 performances of Tristan und Isolde.
Watching Hugh work has demonstrated to me, many times over, what is available if we do not set out to convince others. There are tremendous and creative gains in providing an energized container for people and groups of people to remove, as they desire, their own barriers to themselves and to the relationships around them.
In this way, the work of TUNDI is antithetical to colonialism. Artists, the artists’ process of bringing themselves to the music and drama of Wagner, the sanctity of the surrounding communities, and the souls of those in TUNDI’s audience, none are meant to be bought, sold, owned or manipulated. In this way, TUNDI is prosperous and offers prosperity.
In order to honor TUNDI’s process, in order to engage myself more fully with TUNDI, I am trying my hardest to highlight for you what is valuable here and invite you to experience TUNDI and our Wagner in Vermont August performances in any way you can but without convincing you to act and without selling you something. I do want to be articulate though, about what participation is available to you now or after you experience the festival in August:
Participate in our fundraising that will make tickets available to those who can’t afford tickets without minimizing the value of the musicians involved.
Speak to Hugh and Jenna, or anyone that is part of this production, about being involved in the next round of performances
Inquire about joining TUNDI’s board, to possibly come to love TUNDI’s work the way I do.
Yes, step forward as a major donor.
Purchase tickets and show up as an audience member.
If you find yourself being involved in any of the ways I have just outlined, do so of your own accord. In any of these ways we can meet you, but we want you whole and deeply interested in finding out what passions can be summoned from within you.
Asher Pucciarello
TUNDI Board of Directors Chair