Touring Group
The Touring Group is an auditioned ensemble of teenage musicians, singers, and dancers who rehearse from October to June, ahead of a cultural tour to another country or region. This Vermont Folklife program nurtures youth involvement in traditional music and dance, providing opportunities to learn from tradition bearers and each other, to build connections with artists and communities from Vermont and beyond, and to perform traditional repertoire in a variety of locations and settings. Music connects people and brings joy, enriching communities as it strengthens ties between generations and offers opportunities to share memories and be inspired.
This year the Touring Group, supported by Artist Leaders Pascal Gemme and Véronique Plasse, will spend a week in June touring Quebec after performing at concerts, festivals, and dances in Vermont.
Touring Group Links
Upcoming Concerts
Touring Group Updates
YouTube Playlist
Support the Touring Group
To receive more information about this year’s group email Christina Kennedy
Touring Group originated as a program of Young Tradition Vermont. Learn more about YTV here
-
Touring Group members are teenage musicians, singers, and dancers who are proficient in performing traditional* music and dance repertoire. Members are mostly from Vermont, but has also included members from Quebec, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Maine. Information about the online audition process, which takes place in July and August, will be available in early summer. To receive more information about this year’s group contact Christina Kennedy: touringgroup@vtfolklife.org
-
Group members meet for once a month rehearsals on Saturdays starting in the fall (no December rehearsal) and continuing through June. Performances are in Vermont with a cultural tour, which is often international, this year in June.
-
Group members learn from and are supported by artist leaders, guest/master musicians and dancers/dance leaders, in addition to musical exchanges with master artists, young musicians and dancers while on cultural/performance tours.
The Touring Group’s repertoire is ‘traditional’* and is coordinated by artist leaders.
-
Touring Group 2023/2024 will be traveling to Quebec. Previous groups have traveled to Scotland, Japan, Cape Breton, Northumberland in England, the West Coast of Ireland, and metropolitan New York and New Jersey, and several online tours since March 2020.
-
In this context, traditional means songs, dances and other material that has most often evolved through a process of unwritten, oral transmission and is most often performed by in a particular cultural group in a particular place over a long period of time. The emphasis tends to be on participation rather than performance. Most often what is produced, whether a song, a tune, a dance, or a quilt has a functional purpose. It is something that can be used, that has and tells a story, that carries the tradition forward in the absence of or as a supplement to a written narrative or system. Instrumentally, traditional music is often associated with social dance. At its core, it is an attempt to reproduce what came from a previous generation, and the generation before that, and the generation before that, but each attempt at reproduction inevitably, intentionally or unintentionally, adds to or takes away elements so that it fits an individual’s current experience and circumstances.
2023-24 Artist Leaders
Pascal Gemme
Pascal Gemme is a leading light in Quebec’s traditional music scene.Known as much for his original compositions as his fine interpretation of traditional tunes, Pascal is the fiddler, singer and arranger of the band, Genticorum, whose CDs have met with critical acclaim in several countries.
From a young age, the fiddle music and songs of his native province have captivated him. After graduating with a degree in composition and band arrangements at Montreal’s St Laurent College, he immersed himself in the traditional music around him, playing, collecting and recording music found all over Quebec. Pascal has developed a vast knowledge and is a leading exponent of the music.
Véronique Plasse
Véronique Plasse, a trained actress and a musician, has joined the world of traditional music since a score of years, working at enhancing Québec cultural heritage. Her commitments and involvements are driven by goals which are at the heart of whatever she undertakes: creation, gathering, preservation and diffusion. Endowed with a very sensitive and positive energy, Véronique really enjoys bringing to the public her knowledge and a kind of cultural expertise she acquired through encounters and research.
Spurred by her passion for Québec traditional music, this violinist and singer has been active on the international traditional folk scene for about 20 years. Recognized by her fellow trad musicians as a high-calibre performer, Véronique strongly believes that we must carry on the effort of creating moments and places where beauty, sharing and human interaction weave the threads of a sociocultural fabric we can all call our own. Latest addition to the Bon Débarras trad trio, Véronique performs also in several other significant projects: Beaton-Plasse, Les Commandos Trad, Barbo and Hurlevent.
Make a general donation to the support the Touring Group or participate in one of our fundraisers!
Every gift helps!
Thank you Touring Group Sponsors!
Deb Flanders
Alice Leeds & Rick Ceballos
2023-24 Youth Artist Leaders
-
Isabella Rottler
Isabella Rottler is a 17 year old multi-instrumentalist who grew up in Saint Albans, Vermont. She has been playing fiddle for 9 years, piano for 11 years and flute for the past 3 years. She also studied traditional Irish dance for 5 years and has competed at many Irish dance competitions around New England. Isabella grew up listening to her grandfather play Franco-American tunes on the harmonica, tunes that her great grandfather used to play on his fiddle. She attended many folk festivals and concerts when she was young, listening to her mother, Michèle Choinière, perform in French and sing traditional family songs from Vermont, Québec and France. Over the years, Isabella has studied fiddle with Sarah Hotchkiss, Pete Sutherland, David Gusakov and Don Roy. She has also received 2 Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship scholarships. This will be her 4th year in the Touring Group and she is very excited to be a Youth Artist Leader this year! She has been on 2 virtual tours and most recently, the 2023 tour to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Elle est très heureuse qu’elle joue de la musique traditionnelle Québécoise et Franco-Américaine et elle souhaite apprendre beaucoup de nouvelles pièces de musique! (She is very happy that she is playing traditional Quebecois and Franco-American music and she wishes to learn many new tunes!)
-
Fiona Stowell
Fiona Stowell is a 17 year old fiddler living in Montpelier, Vermont. She has played music since the ripe old age of 4, and has been performing ever since. She is particularly passionate about Cape Breton, Old Time, and Quebecois fiddle styles, but loves playing a little bit of everything. Fiona is also a singer and Celtic dancer. She has sung all over New England with Village Harmony and Northern Harmony, and has performed on stages with Young Tradition Vermont from New York City in 2019 to Cape Breton in 2023. Fiona was the YTV Youth Commission Leader in 2023. That group learned from master artists and performed the new material on a tour in Vermont and Quebec, culminating at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA. She is excited to incorporate all of these elements into this year’s YTV Touring Group as Youth Artist Leader.
-
Emma Taylor McCallum
Emma Taylor McCallum is a classically trained violinist from California’s San Francisco Bay Area. She was converted to folk music by Young Tradition Vermont in 2021 when she joined the Touring Group's virtual “tours” to Quebec, learning from master Québécois artists. Emma returned last year for the group's very real tour to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. She is now 17 years old and an early college student, living and teaching music in Central Vermont. This summer she toured New England with Village Harmony, the polyphonic world singing group. She is delighted to be Youth Artist leader for her third and final year with YTV. She will be teaching music that combines her love of fiddle and singing.
Quotes from group members