Five Performances Across Vermont, July 1–5, 2026 | Select Dates Feature Fireworks
VermontBiz The Vermont Symphony Orchestra (VSO) celebrates the nation's 250th birthday in the most fitting way imaginable: under the open sky, surrounded by community, with a full symphony orchestra. This July 4th weekend, the VSO’s landmark program of American-inspired music, VSO Summer Festival Tour: America 250, visits five venues across the state, conducted by Music Director Andrew Crust.
From the thunderous opening of The Star-Spangled Banner to the irresistible finale of The Stars and Stripes Forever, VSO Summer Festival Tour: America 250 is a joyful, wide-ranging celebration of what American music sounds, feels, and means. The program spans more than a century of the American musical imagination, from John Philip Sousa's march traditions and Aaron Copland's wide-open prairie soundscapes to Duke Ellington's jazz-inflected sophistication and John Williams' cinematic grandeur, culminating in fireworks at select venues on July 2 and July 4.
"What excites me most about this program is how much ground it covers," said Crust. "Copland and Sousa, Ellington and Williams, Dvořák writing his New World Symphony as a newly arrived immigrant. Together these works tell a genuinely complex and thrilling story about what America is and has been. Add live narration and a Vermont summer evening, and I can't imagine a more fitting way to mark this milestone."
Two works on the program will be elevated by live narration, grounding the music in the literary and political heritage of the nation. John Williams' Liberty Fanfare will be performed alongside a reading of Emma Lazarus' The New Colossus, the poem whose words "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" came to define America's promise to the world. Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, one of the most stirring works in the American orchestral canon, includes excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s documents including text from his Gettysburg Address. This will be paired with a reading of Calvin Coolidge's Vermont Is a State I Love, a meditation on the character of this "brave, little state" that resonates today.
The program also features America 250!, a work composed for this historic anniversary by Vermont-based Gwyneth Walker whose music has been performed by orchestras and ensembles across the country. Antonín Dvořák's beloved New World Symphony, written during the composer's years in New York and steeped in the folk traditions and landscapes of his adopted country, rounds out a program of extraordinary breadth and ambition.
VSO Summer Festival Tour: America 250 is made possible through the generous support of the VSO's summer tour sponsors: AARP Vermont, Burke Mountain Resort, Four Season Sotheby’s International Realty, Hanson & Doremus Investment Management, Maple Capital Management, Northeast Delta Dental, Passumpsic Bank, Pentangle Arts, and Stackpole & French Law Offices. Spruce Peak Performing Arts is a co-producer of the concert in Stowe.
Tour Dates:
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Wednesday, July 1 — Saskadena Six, South Pomfret
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Thursday, July 2 — Burke Mountain, East Burke (with fireworks)
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Friday, July 3 — Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center, Grafton
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Saturday, July 4 — Shelburne Museum, Shelburne (with fireworks)
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Sunday, July 5 — von Trapp Family Lodge & Resort Concert Meadow, Stowe
Full Program:
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The Star-Spangled Banner
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Morton Gould — American Salute
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John Williams — Liberty Fanfare (with live reading of Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus")
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Charles Ives — Variations on America
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Gwyneth Walker — America 250!
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Antonín Dvořák — Symphony No. 9, Movement I (New World Symphony)
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John Williams — Cowboys Overture
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Aaron Copland — Hoe-Down from Rodeo
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John Williams — Rey's Theme from The Force Awakens (Star Wars Suite)
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Edward Elgar — Chanson de Matin
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Aaron Copland — Lincoln Portrait (with live reading of Calvin Coolidge's "Vermont Is a State I Love")
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Billy Strayhorn, arr. Hermann — Duke Ellington Fantasy
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John Philip Sousa — The Stars and Stripes Forever
Ticket and venue information for all five performances is available at VSO.org.
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