MARLBORO — Artistic Directors Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida are among 27 artists who will be heard in the opening concerts of the Marlboro Music School and Festival's 60th Anniversary season on Saturday, July 16, at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, July 17 at 2:30 p.m., in programs of works from Brahms to Zemlinsky on the hilltop campus of Vermont's Marlboro College.
From the 92 works explored (all suggested by the 80 resident artists) during the first three weeks of its two-month season, seven were chosen to share in public concerts this coming weekend.
As what The New Yorker described as “the classical world's most coveted retreat,” Marlboro Music is about the chance to explore a wide variety of repertoire in depth and with the time that is so hard to find elsewhere. Less than 15 percent of the 250 works rehearsed each summer are performed in weekend concerts.
Remaining tickets, from $5 to $35, for this and subsequent weekends through Aug. 14 can be obtained online at www.marlboromusic.org (which also contains video, audio samples, and area information) or by calling 802-254-2394.
Goode will be joined in the Brahms Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 , on Saturday by David McCarroll, violin and Andrew Janss, cello. On Sunday, Uchida opens the concert with the Brahms Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91, with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and violist Hélène Clément.
Saturday's program also includes the Schumann String Quartet in F Major, Op. 41, No. 2 with violinists Michelle Ross and Ida Levin (a former member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet), violist Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet, and cellist Paul Wiancko.
Clarinetist Charles Neidich and seven young colleagues (including members of the Harlem String Quartet, A Far Cry, and the Dallas and San Diego Symphonies) will give the first Marlboro performance in over 25 years of the Spohr Octet in E Major, Op. 32 , for woodwinds and strings.
In addition to the Brahms songs, Sunday's program offers two seldom-heard works - the Shostakovich Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 67 with Italian pianist Bruno Canino playing with violinist Ying Fu and cellist Matthew Zalkind, and the first Marlboro performance of Zemlinsky's Maiblumen blühten überall for voice and string sextet with artists including Susanna Phillips.
The concert closes with the Mendelssohn String Quintet in A Major, Op. 18, with a group including the Guarneri Quartet's cellist Peter Wiley.