MARLBORO — When Marlboro Music opens its 60th season on Friday, July 16, at 8:30 p.m., its first performance will be an admission-free concert offered to Marlboro and area neighbors as a “thank you” from musicians and staff for the warm welcome extended to them for six decades.
After a program including the Mozart Quintet in E flat for Horn and Strings, K.407, the Dohnanyi Sextet in C, Opus 37 for piano, winds and strings, and the Dvorak Piano Quartet in D Major, Opus 23, musicians and audience members will gather outside for a reception celebrating the 60th summer of what The New Yorker magazine last summer described as “classical music's most coveted retreat.”
The unique musical community, now led by pianists Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida, attracts top musicians from around the world to the Vermont hilltop campus of Marlboro College to exchange ideas and to explore chamber music for seven weeks in a way not possible elsewhere.
Almost half of the 75 artists in residence for the summer will be heard in the weekend's three concerts, with additional performances on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., sharing the discoveries they have made during their three weeks of intensive rehearsals.
Ten musicians who are participating at Marlboro for the first time will be among the young professionals performing with such noted returning artists as pianists Goode and Jonathan Biss; violinists Vera Beths, Joseph Lin and Hiroko Yajima; Michael Tree and Peter Wiley of the Guarneri Quartet; cellist Marcy Rosen of the Mendelssohn Quartet; Joshua Smith, Principal Flute of the Cleveland Orchestra; and clarinetist Charles Neidich.
Information on tickets for the three concerts can be obtained at www.marlboromusic.org or by calling 802-254-2394. Concerts continue through Aug. 15 with tickets $15 to $35 with canopy area seats for $5.
Programs are drawn from the more than 200 works explored during the summer and are chosen a week in advance from those pieces that the musicians feel have gone especially well. They may be obtained weekly by joining the Marlboro e-mail list at www.marlboromusic.org and are generally posted on Saturdays for the following weekend. The website also contains audio selections of performances from the previous summer, a brief video that gives a sample of Marlboro's music and setting, links to historic inns and motels, restaurants and area activities.
It was at Marlboro that the concept was born of an experienced artist, rather than coaching from outside, playing in each ensemble together with younger colleagues. One of the key “senior” members of the community, who shared his insights with generations of young musicians each summer for more than 30 years, was Guarneri Quartet cellist David Soyer, who died this spring at the age of 87.
Sunday's concert, which includes the Dvorak Piano Quartet in E flat, Opus 87 with Richard Goode, Joseph Lin, Dimitri Murrath and Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, will be dedicated to his memory.