Can a string quartet make you headbang? The Vermont Symphony Orchestra's Jukebox aim to find out with their new show, "Heavy Metal Strings." The hourlong performance will blend the thunderous precision of classical composers such as Felix Mendelssohn with the intensity of rock and metal lege nds Eddie Van Halen, Nirvana and others. The series kicks off its six-show run this Friday, April 4, at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland, where the audience will be seated onstage with the quartet to create a more intimate performance. The tour then moves through venues in Brattleboro, White River Junction and Burlington, before drawing to a close at the Bennington Museum. Roughly half the program consists of popular rock and metal ballads arranged for strings — think Led Zeppelin's 1971 masterpiece "Stairway to Heaven" and Tool's 1996 song "Forty Six & 2." Cellist John Dunlop said the show is about using a string quartet, a form that goes back 250 years or so, to give voice to harmonies and rhythms that modern musicians have played in the past 50 years. "There's no question that a lot of the great rock and rollers were students of classical music in their youth," he said. Translating rock and metal for strings in this year's show meant "doing a lot of choreography with pedals," according to composer and VSO artistic adviser Matt LaRocca, who curates and hosts the Jukebox series. Violinist Brooke Quiggins-Saulnier will run her instrument through several guitar pedals as she plays Eddie Van Halen's 1976 electric guitar solo "Eruption." According to LaRocca, "She just shreds on it." LaRocca had a violin in hand while arranging the piece, which he described as "like a million and a half notes, played in about two minutes of extreme virtuosity." Any composer would need to think deeply about how strings are designed and played, he said, in order to translate Van Halen's "über-specific guitar solo" to violin. "It has to sit perfectly on the players' fingers." Similar considerations influenced the rest of the program as the quartet, which also includes violinist Joana Genova and violist Stefanie Taylor, replicates the sounds of percussion and electric guitars. They'll use their bows to hit the strings sharply with a vertical motion — known as "chopping" — to mimic a snare drum. And they'll utilize a method called ponticello, essentially playing the bow close to the bridge of the instrument. "You… ...read more read less