This weekend, Vermont Public Classical will partner with the Otter Creek Music Festival to present “Hildegard Reanimated,” a visual and musical reimagining of Hildegard von Bingen's music, poetry, and art.
Vermont Public's Jenn Jarecki recently sat down with Helen Lyons of Vermont Public Classical to talk about this still-popular mystic and Saturday’s performance.
Jenn Jarecki: I kind of want to start big and broad here, so apologies in advance to the medieval scholars listening. Briefly, who is Hildegard von Bingen?
Helen Lyons: How long do we have? She was a really amazing person, but in a sort of nutshell, she was a 12th-century Benedictine abbess. She was a composer, a writer, a visionary and she's also one of the earliest known female composers in Western music. She was also really involved in healing. She was a respected healer and herbalist who wrote extensively about herbal medicine, nutrition and that balance of body and spirit. Her music, theology and medical writings all reflect her deep belief in the harmony between the human soul and the natural world. And she was canonized in 2012 by Pope Benedict.
Jenn Jarecki: She really was such a polymath. I remember first hearing about Hildegard when my husband was in his PhD program studying philosophy... She's a Neoplatonist, right?
Helen Lyons: Yes, that's right. Her cosmology reflects the Neoplatonic concept of a soul that animates the entire universe. That animating principle is expressed through her own concept of viriditas, or the greenness of the world.
Jenn Jarecki: Let's turn to "Hildegard Reanimated." Helen, will you paint a picture of of the event for us and how it all came together?
Helen Lyons: Josh Glassman of the Otter Creek Music Festival approached me saying, "Hey, I have this great ensemble, the Pandora Consort. They're Boston-based, but one of their members is actually from White River Junction, and I want to bring them in for the 2026 Festival. But how about we'd partner on something ahead of time to introduce audiences in Vermont to them?" So I, you know, I jumped at the chance. The second he said Hildegard, I was all in.
Jenn Jarecki: Is there's something particularly special about autumn that made it feel like this was the right season for "Hildegard Reanimated"?
Helen Lyons: Well, I think Hildegard's music is great for all seasons, not just seasons of the year, but seasons of life, but in particular in autumn. Especially in this moment we're in right now, where things are so just kind of stressful, we wanted to offer people a way to get away from that. And this music that's rooted in chant is really invites a little bit of contemplation, a little bit of meditation. We are hoping, through the Pandora Consort's music and their wonderful animations, as well as some candlelight, we're hoping to invite people in to just take a minute to bliss out.
Jenn Jarecki: I understand there will be cookies and mulled cider. Please say more.
Helen Lyons: Along with Hildegard's theory of food as medicine, she has a recipe for cookies of joy. They're essentially a spice cookie. I'm just going to read you a little quote of what she says of them: "Eat them often, and they will calm bitterness of the heart and mind. Your hearing and senses will open. Your mind will be joyous. Your senses purified and harmful. Humors will diminish." They have quite a lot of nutmeg, cinnamon and clove in them, and I will be baking them. I'm very excited.
Jenn Jarecki: So for folks going to this event, Helen Lyons herself will be making the cookies of joy?
Helen Lyons: I will be baking the cookies of joy, and also, it wouldn't be autumn in Vermont without a little mulled cider. So we're offering that as refreshments.
Jenn Jarecki: Helen, your appreciation of Hildegard's work is palpable. I'm curious, why do you think she is still so popular some 800 years after her death?
Helen Lyons: I think the sort of resurgence and interest in her began with women's studies programs popping up in the 1970s at colleges and universities, as well as women in music studies that also kind of went hand-in-hand with the early music revival of the 1960s and 1970s. She offers us a deeper connection to nature, a deeper awareness of the world around us, which I think now people are really craving. You know, people want to get away from the phones and the screens and the devices and just get back to the core of who we are as human beings. Also, her 900th birthday was in 1998, so I know there were a lot of recordings of her music popping up in the late 90s.
