Otter Creek Music Festival (OCMF) joins forces with Vermont Public Classical for the second year in a row to close its 2026 season with an immersive evening of genre-crossing music featuring acclaimed singer, composer, and song-collector Moira Smiley and Rasa String Quartet on Saturday, October 17 at 7:00 p.m. at the Vergennes Opera House.
Featuring music from the long arcs of classical and folk music, Roots to Sky explores themes of our interconnectedness - hidden and visible - across a human lifetime. Lush, percussive arrangements and deeply emotive playing surround Smiley’s rich, plaintive voice and carry through into the instrumental music of Caroline Shaw, Sato Matsui and Tchaikovsky.
At the core of the program is Smiley’s ever-expansive voice, piano, banjo and string arrangements from her Rhizome Project - an album and book of essays featuring Vermonters who represent to her the ‘sugar-in-the-ground’ resilience of a rhizome root system. The program traces the unexpected pathways through which musical traditions and people influence one another, creating a concert experience that is at once intimate, adventurous, and deeply engaging.
MOIRA SMILEY
Grammy-nominated singer, composer, and song-collector, Moira Smiley has built an international career around the transformative possibilities of the human voice and the power of traditional song. She has performed, recorded, and collaborated with artists and ensembles including Laurie Anderson, Tune-Yards, Eric Whitacre, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Chris Thile, Sam Amidon, The National Symphony, and Solas. Smiley’s original compositions, choral arrangements, and folk music are performed by millions of voices around the world. Her work as a composer and educator takes her to universities and music organizations across the globe, alongside an active schedule of performances and commissions.
Her Rhizome Project takes inspiration from the underground root systems that allow plants to communicate, share resources, and thrive collectively. In Smiley’s musical world, those rhizomes become a metaphor for the ways songs connect us to one another—and to people and cultures across time.
RASA STRING QUARTET
Rasa String Quartet, a Boston-based ensemble formed in 2019, brings together violinists Emma Powell and Maura Shawn Scanlin, violist Kiyoshi Hayashi, and cellist Mina Kim. Graduates of the New England Conservatory, Shepherd School of Music, and Yale University, the quartet is known for performances that blend classical elegance with folk whimsy while celebrating musical traditions from around the world.
Rasa has earned top honors at the Associazione Europea di Musica e Comunicazione International Chamber Music Competition in Italy, the Music Teachers National Association Chamber Music Competition, and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. The ensemble was also in residence at Phillips Exeter Academy during the 2022–23 season.
Their commitment to education and community engagement has led to residencies at institutions including Walnut Hill School for the Arts, UMass Dartmouth, and Boston Music Project.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF FALL CONCERT
Roots to Sky reflects the ongoing commitment by Otter Creek Music Festival and Vermont Public to present exceptional live music and other programming throughout intimate Vermont communities while focusing on performances that cross traditional boundaries.
For OCMF, the fall concert is also part of a broader expansion beyond the festival’s traditional summer season. After nearly five decades of presenting music in and around the Otter Creek Valley, the organization now presents programming throughout the year, connecting audiences with artists and musical experiences in communities from Rutland to Vergennes.
Roots to Sky takes place Saturday, October 17 at 7:00 p.m. at the Vergennes Opera House, 120 Main Street, Vergennes, Vermont. Tickets and additional information are available at OtterCreekMusicFestival.com.
