MARLBORO-Marlboro Music’s 75th anniversary season continues Saturday and Sunday, July 25 and 26, with the second weekend of concerts and free open rehearsals throughout the week in Persons Auditorium, 2472 South Rd.
Some 26 musicians will take the stage, representing the full spectrum of experienced and emerging musical talent that characterizes all of the collaborations at Marlboro. Weekend performances and open rehearsals will continue through Aug. 16.
Saturday evening’s program offers an opportunity to listen deeply to the work of Marlboro’s 2026 composer-in-residence, Marcos Balter. The Brazilian-born composer on his website describes his compositional approach as resonant humanism. “By this,” he says, “I mean a way of making music that places human presence, vulnerability, and attentive listening at the center of the work.”
Written in 2012, “Chambers,” for string quartet, is a “three-movement exploration of texture, timbre, and psychoacoustic perception,” to be performed by violinists Masha Lakisova and Laurel Gagnon, violist Brian Isaacs, and cellist Jay Campbell.
“Codex Seraphinianus,” for flute, clarinet, bassoon, and viola, is named for and inspired by a mysterious book: an illustrated, surrealist encyclopedia of an imaginary world, published in 1981 by Italian artist Luigi Serafini and written entirely in an invented script that has never been decoded.
Fascinated by the book’s strange beauty, Balter translated its visual catalog into an equally surreal sonic landscape. The work will be performed by flutist Hannah Tassler, clarinetist Arthur Stockel, bassoonist Duncan Henry, and violist Beth Guterman Chu.
Saturday’s program also includes Beethoven’s Clarinet Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11, performed by Stockel, cellist Nagyeom Jang, and senior pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn; and Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10, performed by violinists Sara Bitlloch and Clara Neubauer, violist Sofia Gilchenok, and cellist Laura Navasardian.
Sunday’s program opens with Britten’s Canticle III: “Still falls the Rain,” Op. 55 — a setting of Edith Sitwell’s wartime poem for tenor, horn, and piano—performed by tenor Eric Finbarr Carey, hornist Carys Sutherland, and pianist Lydia Brown.
Mozart’s Piano Trio in G Major, K. 564 follows, with pianist Solomon Ge, Neubauer, and Campbell. Prokofiev’s Quintet, Op. 39, famous for its circus-inspired energy, is performed by oboist Alexander Mayer, clarinetist Jonathan Leibovitz, violinist Joseph Lin, violist Jonathan Chu, and bassist Tobias Vigneau.
The program closes with Britten’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, performed by violinists Tiffany Chang and Lakisova, senior violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and cellist Dilshod Narzillaev.
Tickets ($20–$40) are available for Saturday evening’s concert and may be purchased at marlboromusic.org or by calling the Marlboro Box Office at 802-258-9331. Sunday’s performance is sold out; a waiting list is maintained for returned tickets. For more information, contact the Marlboro reception desk at 802-254-2394 or [email protected].
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.