MARLBORO — Artistic Directors Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida, and more than 75 other master concert artists and young professional musicians from around the world, have been busy rehearsing since June 24 in the classrooms and studios on the hilltop campus of Marlboro College in preparation for the 62nd season of the Marlboro Music Festival, which begins this weekend.
Over the span of seven weeks, these artists form a community where musicians exchange ideas and make new artistic discoveries as they explore in depth 250 works with the rare freedom of unlimited rehearsal time.
The festival is described by The New Yorker as “the classical world's most coveted retreat.” Fewer than 20 percent of the works rehearsed are performed at the five weekends of concerts.
An example of this process can be seen in the July 14 and 15 opening weekend concerts. Of the 80 works in rehearsal during the first three weeks, works suggested by the resident artists themselves, seven will be heard on the opening weekend on Saturday, July 14, at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday, July 15, at 2:30 p.m.
Rarely-heard works of Mozart, Schumann, Franck, and Carter are juxtaposed with such favorites as Beethoven's Ghost Trio and Brahms' String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1. The latter work was last performed at Marlboro in 1974 with young musicians who went on to become founders or members of the Emerson, Takacs, and Cleveland Quartets and the Boston Symphony.
This year's participants are already deeply immersed in the rehearsal process exploring some 80 different works from Lera Auerbach and William Bolcom (this year's Resident Composers) to Vaughn Williams and Webern.
The schedule includes masterworks and lesser-known works by Bartok, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, and Mozart; works for strings and woodwinds such as the septet of Davidovsky; the Octet by Enescu as well as works by Berio, Dohnanyi, Heggie, Janacek, Kurtag, Martinu, Penderecki, Schnittke, Schumann, Shostakovich, and Smetana.
Tickets from $15 to $37.50 are available online at www.marlboromusic.org or by calling 802-254-2394. Concerts continue through Aug. 12 (which is sold out except for $5 canopy area seats, which are available for all concerts) with two special Friday concerts at 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 3 and 10.
Members of the public are also invited also to attend designated free open rehearsals in the Persons Auditorium starting July 11.