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Vermont Youth Orchestra Senior Soloist Series: Megan Mentzer

A young smiling woman in a blue concert gown holds percussion mallets while standing in front of a large arched window.
photo credit: Arielle Thomas
/
courtesy of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association
Megan Mentzer, percussion - one of the VYO's four Senior Soloists in their 2024-2025 season

Spotlight on the Vermont Youth Orchestra's 2024 - 2025 Senior Soloists

For their 2024 - 2025 season, the Vermont Youth Orchestra presents a quartet (a 'Fab Four' if you will) of Senior Soloists, who will be highlighted at concerts in October and December 2024, and February and May 2025. Ahead of each concert, we'll be bringing you interviews with these talented young women. This second one in our series features percussionist Megan Mentzer, formerly a student at Vergennes Union High School, now taking classes as an early college student at Castleton University. She'll perform an excerpt from Darius Milhaud's Concerto for Marimba & Vibraphone Sunday, December 15th at 4 p.m. at the Flynn in Burlington, as part of the Vermont Youth Orchestra's 'Orchestrapalooza' concert, The Joy of Making Music - Together! For more information about the Vermont Youth Orchestra and their upcoming season, go to vyo.org, and for tickets to the performance, visit flynnvt.org.

TRANSCRIPT

MEGAN MENTZER: My dream to be honest is to be a conductor, but I love percussion. My name is Megan Mentzer. I'm attending Castleton University as an early college student, but I went to Vergennes Union High School for the last three years. I play percussion, I've been in the VYO for three years and I was in the youth philharmonic for a year and a half before that

HELEN LYONS: Megan Mentzer is the second of the Vermont Youth Orchestra's senior soloists this season and will be featured in their Orchestrapalooza concert, The Joy of Making Music - Together! on December 15th at the Flynn. She'll perform an excerpt from Darius Milhaud's concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone.

Between her studies at Castleton and rehearsals in Colchester, Megan has an extremely busy schedule, but we found time to speak - with the occasional accompaniment of her roosters in the background.

How long have you been interested in music, and where did that initial inspiration and encouragement come from?

MENTZER: I've been a musician forever. So it was pretty much percussion since the beginning. My dad was a drummer in high school. I had this set up where I would play like snare on a stool and I would play the high hat on this foam block and he would teach me like the basic rhythms. And that was probably in the fourth or third grade. And then as soon as I was allowed to choose an instrument at school, after the recorder, I picked percussion.

LYONS: I'm hoping times have changed since I was your age, but percussion was always an instrument that seemed to really be dominated by the boys. Is that still the case today?

MENTZER: I remember my freshman year, I did the All-State and the New England festivals. I recall being the only girl at those. That was especially overwhelming because I was the youngest in the section, the only girl, and no one ever talked to me. I think I would say it's still male-dominated. But, you know, in the past year in the VYO, it's been three girls and one guy. So I think that there's definitely been an effort to reach out to girls and get them involved with percussion.

LYONS, Ok, so let's talk about your upcoming solo, the opening movement of Darius Milhaud’s Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone. What's this piece like, and what inspires you about it?

MENTZER: It's kind of a bit odd. I remember the first time I listened to it. I was like, that's weird. So it's, it's different than a lot of the music that the VYO has played in the past. There's this like special connection between composers and percussionists in the fact that percussionists are always hungry for repertoire and composers are always happy to compose something new. Milhaud wrote this with a percussionist. This is one of the first concertos written for mallets. It’s inspired by a lot of jazz and in kind of a French style. There's a lot of dancing with the marimba, you really have to move. It's exciting to hear the orchestra become more percussive - to kind of meet me in the middle. I have a bit of a bias, but I think that percussion is the most intense of the instruments: you have to really not just learn a piece in your mind, but learn it in your body…I can tell the audience that it'll be exciting to watch.

LYONS: You seem like a very confident performer, but do you ever get nervous before a performance?

MENTZER: No, I don't. I do consider myself to be very confident and the way I view it is that if I prepared well, then there's no need to get nervous because I'll just perform the way I have.

LYONS: You mentioned earlier that you're really ultimately interested in conducting. When did that interest begin, and what is it like to lead a full orchestra?

MENTZER: I was inspired to kind of pursue conducting after getting a chance to conduct the VYOP or VYO in rehearsal. And we were playing Tchaikovsky's…it was Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet! The director had asked people to come up and conduct and I immediately volunteered because that is so exciting to me. And I just remember getting up there and it was really thrilling and scary and seeing everybody look at me was, I don't know, it was just, it was awe-inspiring. It kind of filled me with this admiration for the combined effort that they've put in to be here and the respect that they had for me standing there, even though I knew very little about what I was about to do. It was really kind of an addicting feeling to have the music fill you and…I'm still not over it. It was really powerful.

LYONS: And are you finding more opportunities to conduct?

MENTZER: I'm in a conducting class. I'm in Conducting One this semester at Castleton and it's just so fun. I mean, we're doing the technical basics and it's everything I hoped and dreamed for.

LYONS: So, what's your bucket list dream piece to conduct someday?

MENTZER: Dvorak’s Ninth has just been on the tip of my baton ever since I heard it. That one's always just been really special to me.

LYONS: And what are your plans post-high school? Are you conservatory-bound?

MENTZER: I want to study at either a liberal arts school or like a university somewhere where I could do a double major because I want to study a lot of things: math and also linguistics.

LYONS: So you've achieved a high level with your music studies. What advice do you have for younger musicians who hope to do the same?

MENTZER: My first bit of advice would be to say, ‘Yes.’ This is special to me because I have gotten into a lot of gigs and a lot of musical opportunities just by saying yes and showing up. I have to tell somebody who's starting to just say ‘yes’ as often as they can because the further that you go in your career, the more ‘No’s you're gonna hear. So at the very beginning, it's important to try and make as many connections as you can. And then I guess my second part kind of feeds into the connections, which is just like to be kind. The music world I'm realizing as I become, you know, more and more involved in it, it's really small. It's really powerful to just be a kind person, be a good person, be a well-rounded person, and to make an impression on people with who you are, not just who you are as a musician, but who you are as somebody who helps to pick up at the end of a gig, or who is early every time, or who brought somebody else coffee. Leave a lasting impression, you know, long after the piece is over.

LYONS: My thanks to Megan Mentzer for speaking with me. Megan will make her lasting impression on Sunday, December 15th as the featured senior soloist performing an excerpt from Darius Milhaud's concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone as part of the Vermont Youth Orchestra's festival concert, The Joy of Making Music - Together! at the Flynn Theater in Burlington at 4 p.m. For more information and tickets head to flynnvt.org.

Helen Lyons serves as the Music Manager and host of Vermont Public Classical’s Monday-Saturday morning program. She grew up in Williston, Vermont, and holds a BA in Music from Wellesley College and Artist Diplomas from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. She has enjoyed an international singing career spanning three continents, performing in Europe, China, The Philippines and the USA.