ARTIST PROFILE

Musicians from Marlboro

BIOGRAPHY

MUSICIANS FROM MARLBORO, the touring extension of the renowned Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, offers exceptional young musicians from the summer Festival together with seasoned artists in chamber music programs of rarely-heard works and masterpieces of varied instrumentation. Each year, more than twenty-five outstanding artists take time from their regular activities to bring Musicians from Marlboro concerts to cities around the country. Now in its thirty-ninth season, Musicians from Marlboro offers a far wider audience a sample of the varied programs and spirit of music-making so characteristic of Marlboro, prompting the Washington Post to describe Musicians from Marlboro as "a virtual guarantee of musical excellence."

Marlboro Music was founded in 1951 by three families bearing the famous names of Serkin, Busch and Moyse. Marlboro brings together leading musicians from all parts of the U.S. and many foreign countries for two months each summer. Both young professionals and mature artists come to the tiny town of Marlboro, Vermont at their own expense to exchange ideas and explore together the vast repertoire of chamber music in an informal and intimate setting, removed from the pressures of professional concert life. The legendary Pablo Casals, a principal figure at the Festival for many years, said, "I came expecting a school and found instead a temple of music." Marlboro is now guided by co-Artistic Directors Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida, who both participated there early in their careers, together with a committee of distinguished senior artists.

Marlboro performances can be heard on a series of recordings issued on compact disc in honor of Marlboro's 40th Anniversary by Sony Classical, including many masterworks of the chamber repertoire as well as some previously unreleased performances of Casals conducting the Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 6, the "Egmont" Overture, Schubert's Symphony No. 5, and the Schumann Symphony No. 2. In 2000, Sony released an historic performance of Rudolf Serkin laying Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy" with Peter Serkin conducting the Marlboro Festival Orchestra, in honor of Marlboro's 50th Anniversary, and in 2001, Bridge Records released a 2-CD set containing chamber works by Beethoven, Verdi, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bartók, Ligeti and Kurtág.

The Musicians from Marlboro touring program has introduced many of today's leading solo and chamber music artists to American audiences, giving many of them their first touring experiences. Among them are pianists Yefim Bronfman, Richard Goode, Ruth Laredo, Murray Perahia, András Schiff and Peter Serkin; violinists Pamela Frank, Miriam Fried, Young Uck Kim, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin and Shlomo Mintz; cellists Nathaniel Rosen, Leslie Parnas and Peter Wiley; flutists Paula Robison and Carol Wincenc; clarinetist Richard Stoltzman; soprano Benita Valente and baritone Sanford Sylvan.

In 1993, Marlboro renewed its Composer-in-Residence program. Each season, an exceptional senior and younger composer are invited to attend, enabling Marlboro's participating instrumentalists and singers to gain invaluable insights into their music through direct collaborations. In keeping with the tradition of presenting a broad sampling of the musical works explored at Marlboro during the summer, Musicians from Marlboro touring groups perform works by the Composers-in-Residence throughout the country. The Piano Quintet by John Harbison, who was Composer-in-Residence in 1994, was presented during the 1995-96 season; Gyorgy Kurtág's "Mládí Suite for Winds," which was heard at Marlboro in 1997, was toured during the 1999-2000 season; Leon Kirchner's Piano Trio No. 1, also performed at Marlboro in 1997, was performed on tour during the 2000-2001 season; and Thomas Adès' "Catch," performed at Marlboro in 2000, was heard on tour in the 2003-2004 season.