MARLBORO — Every summer at Marlboro Music, an international, multi-generational community forms anew, comprising 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.
The 2023 season of Marlboro Music concerts will take place on Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons from July 15 through Aug. 13 in Persons Auditorium on the Potash Hill campus in Marlboro.
There will be two additional evening performances on Friday, Aug. 4 - the annual Town Benefit Concert at the Marlboro Dining Hall, with all proceeds supporting Marlboro town organizations - and on Aug. 11 at Persons Auditorium.
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,” organizers say.
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.
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,” organizers say.
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.
This season, Marlboro will welcome 20 first-year participants, representing nearly half the total number of young artists in residence. Their talent and sense of discovery brings a fresh and vital energy to the whole community.
There will be 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 Marlboro's young singers).
Helmut Lachenmann will be this season's 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, such as Uchida and 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 they 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 attracted distinguished concert artists and promising emerging instrumentalists and singers to its idyllic Southern Vermont campus.
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 Uchida and Biss, remaining true to its core ideals while incorporating fresh ideas and inspiration,” say organizers.