Previewing Marlboro Music's Summer Season: July 15 - August 13
Submitted by tim
on
Every summer at Marlboro Music, an international, multi-generational community forms anew, comprised of some 80 professional musicians, as well as staff members, spouses, and children. For seven decades, it has been Marlboro's mission to mentor emerging artists, to provide nearly unlimited rehearsal time and artistic freedom, and to create a nurturing community with a joyful and loving spirit, surrounded by the verdant beauty of Southern Vermont.
Known worldwide as an institution devoted to artistic excellence and to developing new leaders who illuminate all areas of music, Marlboro is where the concept of having master artists play together with exceptional young professionals was born—initiating a dynamic, collaborative approach to learning. Under the artistic direction of pianists Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, the artists form more than 60 chamber music ensembles each week, working together intensively for seven weeks from late June until mid August.
Five weekends of public performances emanate from this program. While the concerts feature only about a quarter of the hundreds of ensembles that rehearse each summer, they represent the exceptionally high standards and spirit of collegiality and artistic discovery that characterize all of the groups. Concert programs are selected from those groups that have worked to especially satisfying results. For this reason, specific programs and artists are determined and announced only about one week in advance of each concert.
Summer Concerts & Tickets
Concerts take place on Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons from July 15 through August 13, 2023 in Persons Auditorium on the Potash Hill campus in Marlboro, Vermont. There will be two additional evening performances on Friday, August 4* and Friday, August 11.
Tickets are on sale now and may be ordered online at marlboromusic.org or by contacting our Box Office Manager, Patrick LaVecchia-Burke, at 215-569-4690 or [email protected]. Seating is reserved, with tickets ranging from $20-40.
Please note there will also be free open rehearsals during the day in Persons Auditorium, beginning the week of July 10; audience members may contact the Marlboro reception desk each week this summer for more information (802-254-2394).
* Our August 4 Town Benefit Concert takes place in the Marlboro Dining Hall, with all proceeds supporting Marlboro town organizations.
This season we will welcome 20 first-year participants to the Marlboro family—representing nearly half of the total number of young artists in residence. Their talent and sense of discovery brings a fresh and vital energy to the whole community.
We are also excited to introduce five new senior musicians—including cellist Marie Bitlloch (of the Elias Quartet), Alberto Menéndez Escribano (former Principal Horn of the BBC Philharmonic), and tenor Mark Padmore (who will work on Bach Cantatas with our young singers)—and to welcome Helmut Lachenmann as composer in residence. This will be a rare U.S. visit for the 87-year-old German composer who is acclaimed for adventurous works "whose aim is the simplest and most direct that you can have as a composer—a desire to create beauty and transcendence" (The Guardian).
This summer's roster, of course, also includes many "senior artists," like Ms. Uchida and Mr. Biss, who first spent formative summers in Vermont at the beginning of their careers and have returned to share their Marlboro and personal musical experiences with new generations. They include pianists Anna Polonsky and Cynthia Raim, and current and past members of the Guarneri, JACK, Johannes, Juilliard, Mendelssohn, Orion, and St. Lawrence Quartets, and orchestra principals such as clarinetist Anthony McGill (New York Philharmonic) and oboist Nathan Hughes (Met Opera). The vocal program will be led by returning artists Lydia Brown, Anja Strauss, and Benita Valente, and we are also delighted to welcome back two senior vocal artists, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano.
Described by The New Yorker as "the classical world's most coveted retreat," Marlboro Music has, for seven decades, attracted the world's most distinguished concert artists and most promising emerging instrumentalists and singers to its idyllic Southern Vermont campus.
Participants spend seven weeks exploring and exchanging ideas on the approximately 250 works, involving a wide variety of instrumental and vocal combinations, that the musicians themselves have proposed to study. As a retreat where the mission is to delve into music in great depth, less than 25% of the works rehearsed are presented in the weekend concerts. Programs are only decided a week in advance and are drawn from those works that the musicians feel have gone especially well and should be shared with others. Audiences enjoy a spirit of discovery, experiencing exciting young musicians and hearing insightful interpretations of chamber music masterworks and unfamiliar pieces played with great passion and joy.
Since the Guarneri String Quartet formed at Marlboro in 1964, former participants have formed or joined many outstanding ensembles, including the Brentano, Cleveland, Dover, Emerson, Juilliard, Mendelssohn, Orion, Takács, Tokyo, and Vermeer Quartets; the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and a great many other prominent groups. Marlboro artists have also expanded the art form in innovative ensembles such as Brooklyn Rider, Decoda, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), TASHI, Windscape, and the Aizuri and Momenta Quartets. Others are now principal chair members of leading symphonic and opera orchestras worldwide; are among today’s most sought-after recording and solo artists; or are acclaimed teachers at prominent conservatories and universities.
Founded in 1951 by the eminent pianist Rudolf Serkin and co-founders Adolf and Hermann Busch and Marcel, Blanche, and Louis Moyse, Marlboro continues to thrive today under the leadership of Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, remaining true to its core ideals while incorporating fresh ideas and inspiration.
