MARLBORO — Artistic Directors Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss welcomed approximately 70 resident artists - 18 of whom will be attending for the first time - to Marlboro on June 23, as Marlboro Music opens its 69th season.
Musicians will spend seven weeks exploring and exchanging ideas on the approximately 250 works that they themselves have proposed to study. Marlboro's first week's schedule includes 65 works involving a variety of instrumental and vocal combinations.
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 young instrumentalists and singers to Vermont's idyllic Marlboro College campus.
As a retreat where the mission is to delve into music in great depth, less than 25 percent of the works rehearsed are presented in the weekend concerts. Programs are decided only a week in advance and are drawn from those works that the musicians feel have gone especially well and should be shared with others.
Performances will be on Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. from July 13 through Aug. 11. There will be two special Friday concerts on July 26 and Aug. 9 at 8 p.m. Further information and tickets may be obtained at marlboromusic.org or by calling 802-254-2394.
Visitors also have the opportunity to attend open rehearsals, without charge, at Persons Auditorium. Schedules are announced at the beginning of each week.
The 2019 participating artists include 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.
The eminent Leon Fleisher will also be in residence as guest artist, and the vocal program will be led by returning artists Lydia Brown, Malcolm Martineau, Ken Noda, and Benita Valente.
Two senior participants will return to Marlboro after long absences. Violinist Daniel Phillips, of the Orion Quartet, was last in residence as a young participant back in 1977, and clarinetist Alex Fiterstein returns after seven years. Clarinetist, composer, and conductor Jörg Widmann also returns as composer-in residence after a previous residency in 2008.