Vermont's Freedom & Unity Chorus with David Feurzeig - Play Every Town VT

The Play Every Town Project 

Pianist David Feurzeig to play a free concert in every town in Vermont between May 2022 and December 2026 

Why? 

Live music is back after a long Covid pause. Great! But existing touring models are not sustainable.  Like so much of our everyday fossil-fuel-intensive culture, touring  needs to change rapidly and radically if we are to maintain a livable  world. Long-distance jet-dependent concertizing is not limited to star  performers: for academic musicians as well, like me, there are  incentives to fly, fly, fly. The farther the gig, the more prestige and  promotion/tenure brownie points earned—even at UVM, my green-branded  employer. (Look at my bio right here, I still boast about my premiere in  Dresden! my performance in Bangkok!)

But I’ve given up flying. I’ll have  to travel to the rest of my gigs by public transit or in my  solar-powered EV, and that’s going to narrow my radius; passenger boat  service to Asia isn’t what it used to be.  And there’s so much beauty  and variety right here in Vermont. I think about what Thoreau said: “I  have traveled a good deal in Concord.” So I decided to play 251 concerts  in my little home state.

I hope this tour will amplify the  actions I’m taking in response to the climate crisis. The solution is not individual action, obviously, but there’s no solution without it.  When I decided to stop flying, at first I kept quiet—because who wants  to be a scold, holier-than-thou, making people feel bad about going to  see Grandma? Then I realized that the only thing more maddeningly,  laughably insignificant than me not taking a flight here and there would  be me not taking those flights…and not telling anyone. We need to normalize behavior that’s currently fringe, and that doesn’t happen in silence.

Community 

While Vermont’s local communitarian  ethic is easily exaggerated and often idealized, it’s a real thing. But  the sense of community and place is threatened here as everywhere. I  want to support the vibrancy of village centers and downtowns by  performing in places where live music isn’t often heard anymore.

In that spirit, I will tailor each  concert to its place in some way, by accompanying a local musician in a  piece or two, or playing music by a local composer where possible. Every  program will be different at least in some part.