For 75 years, Marlboro Music has been a place unlike any other—an idealistic experiment where extraordinary musicians gather to explore music in depth, across generations, in a spirit of discovery and collaboration.
Vermont Business Magazine Celebrating its 75th anniversary season this summer, Marlboro Music—the internationally renowned chamber music school and festival under the artistic leadership of pianists Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss—brings together some 80 exceptional musicians from around the world for seven weeks of intensive musical collaboration, exploration, and performance.
Throughout the summer, Marlboro artists—of diverse ages, backgrounds, and perspectives—will explore chamber music works in great depth, with unlimited time and ideal conditions. Those groups that feel they have gotten to the very heart of the music will then present to the public the exciting results of their efforts during five weekends of concerts and open rehearsals from July 18 to August 16, on the Marlboro Music campus in beautiful southern Vermont.
Tickets for the 2026 Marlboro Music summer season are on sale now at marlboromusic.org and through the Marlboro Box Office (215-569-4690). Concert tickets are $20–40. Performances take place in Persons Auditorium on Saturday evenings at 8 pm and Sunday afternoons at 2:30 pm, as well as on Friday, August 7 and Friday, August 14 at 8 pm. The August 7 performance is the annual Marlboro Music Town Benefit Concert, with all proceeds supporting Marlboro town organizations. Open rehearsals begin the week of July 13; schedules are announced at the beginning of each week.
Since 1951, Marlboro Music has been recognized throughout the world for its vital role in inspiring a love of chamber music, in introducing and mentoring new musical leaders, in setting the highest standards, in elevating chamber music as an art form, and in demonstrating the value of collaboration and community in the pursuit of shared goals. Marlboro is where the concept of having seasoned artists play together with exceptional emerging professionals was born—initiating a dynamic, collaborative approach to learning.
Throughout the season, some 200 chamber music study groups delve into works of the artists’ own choosing, spanning from the Baroque era to contemporary compositions. Musicians may read a piece once and then form another ensemble, or they may choose to explore it in depth over several weeks. Because Marlboro’s fundamental mission centers on inquiry and discovery, ensembles are scheduled for public performance only when the musicians feel they have achieved inspiring results.
Five weekends of public concerts emanate from this dynamic approach to learning. Though the performances showcase merely a quarter of the numerous groups that rehearse each summer, they embody the high standards and spirit of collaborative discovery that define all of the groups at Marlboro. Concert repertoire is chosen each week by the musicians themselves. For this reason, specific programs and artists are determined and announced only about one week in advance of each concert.
Participating Artists
This season more than a dozen first-year participants will join the Marlboro family. All of the emerging musicians at Marlboro are outstanding professionals in early stages of their careers, who are selected to attend through highly competitive auditions held each winter or are returning for a second or third season.
The other artists are more experienced, acclaimed recitalists; members of leading chamber ensembles; principals in the world’s premier orchestras; and highly sought-after teachers. Many of these senior artists, like Ms. Uchida and Mr. Biss, spent formative summers in Vermont at the outset of their careers and have returned to pass along their Marlboro and personal musical experiences to new generations. Each ensemble at Marlboro includes at least one senior artist and several emerging musicians who explore the music together as equals, in a spirit of inquiry and discovery.
They include pianists Ieva Jokubaviciute, Juho Pohjonen, Cynthia Raim, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn; current and past members of the Borromeo, Brentano, Cherubini, Doric, Elias, Guarneri, JACK, Juilliard, and Mendelssohn Quartets and the Gould Piano Trio; and orchestra principals such as violinist Meesun Hong Coleman (Mahler Chamber Orchestra); violist Beth Guterman Chu (Saint Louis Symphony); flutist Joshua Smith (Cleveland Orchestra); oboists Mary Lynch VanderKolk (Seattle Symphony) and Frank Rosenwein (Cleveland Orchestra); and bassoonist Guilhaume Santana (Mahler Chamber Orchestra). The vocal program will be led by returning artists Lydia Brown and Anja Burmeister, and soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano return as senior vocal artists.
Marlboro’s 2026 composer in residence is Marcos Balter. Praised by The Chicago Tribune as “minutely crafted” and “utterly lovely,” the music of the Brazilian-born Balter is at once emotionally visceral and intellectually complex. He describes his compositional approach as “resonant humanism”: a way of making music that places human presence, vulnerability, and attentive listening at the center of the work. Marlboro artists will explore and perform several of Balter’s chamber music works over the course of the summer.
About Marlboro Music
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 emerging instrumentalists and singers to its idyllic Southern Vermont campus.
Participants spend seven weeks exploring and exchanging ideas on more than 200 works, involving a wide variety of instrumental and vocal combinations, that the musicians themselves have proposed to study. As a retreat where the mission is to delve into music in great depth, less than 25% of the works rehearsed are presented in the weekend concerts. Programs are only decided a week in advance and are drawn from those works that the musicians feel have gone especially well and should be shared with others. Audiences enjoy a spirit of discovery, experiencing exciting emerging musicians and hearing insightful interpretations of chamber music masterworks and unfamiliar pieces played with great passion and joy.
Since the Guarneri String Quartet formed at Marlboro in 1964, former participants have formed or joined many outstanding ensembles, including the Borromeo, Brentano, Cleveland, Daedalus, Dover, Emerson, Juilliard, Mendelssohn, Orion, St. Lawrence, Takács, Tokyo, and Vermeer Quartets; the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and many more prominent groups. Marlboro artists have also expanded the art form in innovative ensembles such as Brooklyn Rider, Decoda, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, TASHI, Windscape, and the Aizuri, Catalyst, JACK, and Momenta Quartets. Others are now principal chair members of leading symphonic and opera orchestras worldwide; are among today’s most sought-after recording and solo artists; or are acclaimed teachers at prominent conservatories and universities. Some have made vital contributions, through music, in promoting racial, economic, and social justice.
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 Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, remaining true to its core ideals while incorporating fresh ideas and inspiration.
