COLCHESTER – The police are currently on the lookout for members of a vigilante music group calling themselves “Da Capo,” believing them to be responsible for the theft of $40,000 worth of modern audio equipment from the Elley-Long Music Center. The center is hosting the VYOA’s Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, where the musicians were planning to use the modern equipment to record older pieces of music.
Da Capo has a website on the dark web that states their mission as “Returning Music to its Intended Form,” and have announced plans to remove microphones and cables from other performances in the past. “They didn’t have microphones in 1750, so we shouldn’t use them now!” says one image on the site. The police do not believe the group has followed through on their plans before now, although there was a suspicious incident last year, where a performers cello was mysteriously replaced by a viola da gamba just before a performance of music by Carl Friedrich Abel.
The executive director of the VYOA stressed that, as a musical non-profit organization, they already struggle with funding, and has asked for the return of the expensive equipment. She also stressed that these people are not the good kind of vigilantes, and should be treated with caution, as the break-in not only involved the theft of the microphones, but also some cash. was taken and there was damage to the building.
Police urge anyone with knowledge about the incident to immediately report to the authorities the identities and whereabouts of the robbers and luters.
Ouch! Anyway,the godfather of Da Capo is Dell Signeaux — shouldn’t be hard to locate him.