Concert Series continues with Musicians from Marlboro
The 2000-01 Bates College Concert Series continues with the world-renowned Musicians from Marlboro. The touring extension of the famed Marlboro Music School and Festival in Vermont will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, at the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The performance is part of the college’s six-concert series of classical, jazz and world music that runs through March 29. Tickets are $12 for general admission and $8 for students or seniors, and can be reserved by calling 207-786-6252.
Each year, more than 25 musicians take the Musicians from Marlboro concerts across the country for what Time magazine has called “the most exciting chamber music in the United States.” Now in its 36th season, the touring program has introduced many of today’s leading solo and chamber music artists to American audiences, including pianists Richard Goode, Murray Perahia and Andras Schiff; violinists Pamela Frank, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin and Shlomo Mintz; flutists Paula cellists Nathanial Rosen, Leslie Parnas and Peter Wiley; clarinetist Richard Stolzman; soprano Benita Velente; and baritone Sanford Sylvan. The New York Times has called the group “a trademark that guarantees a product of the highest quality.”
The Musicians from Marlboro is a community of musicians who come together every year for seven weeks in the Green Mountains of Vermont to exchange ideas and explore chamber music. It is a retreat where exceptional young professionals make music side by side with veteran, or “senior” artists.
One of those credited with founding the school is Adolph Busch, who came to America from Germany in the 1930s at the dawn of the Nazi era. Busch, with his brother Herman, his son-in-law Rudolf Serkin and others, hoped to create an environment in which the love of music was paramount.
Serkin, the man most closely associated with Marlboro’s development after Busch’s death in 1952, called Marlboro “a republic of equals.” Cellist Pablo Casals, who conducted at the festival from 1962 until his death in 1973, referred to it as a “temple of music.”
Each season exceptional senior and younger composers are invited to Marlboro through its composer-in-residence program creating an invaluable learning environment for Marlboro’s participants. Keeping with the tradition of presenting a broad sampling of musical works explored at Marlboro’s summer program, Musicians from Marlboro touring groups perform works by their composers-in-residence. Leon Kirchner’s Piano Trio No. 1, performed at Marlboro in 1997, is slated for this year’s tour.
