UChicago Presents: Musicians from Marlboro

Schubert: Notturno in E-flat Major, D. 987
Handel: Nel dolce dell’Oblio
Kate Soper: Only the words themselves mean what they say
Brahms: Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8

6:30 PM lecture with David Wilson

For a who’s who in chamber music, check the roster of the Marlboro Music Festival, founded in 1951 by Rudolf Serkin. It’s a summer musical idyll in a former barn in Vermont that has grown extraordinary chamber musicians for more than five decades. These artists – such as the Guarneri Quartet, Pablo Casals, Benita Valente, and Mitsuko Uchida, among many, many others – have gone on to share their musical riches with countless audiences and other musicians, as well. Spoken about with reverence by musicians, the Marlboro Festival is that place that inspires the wonderful camaraderie and give-and-take in learning that can happen when pros and younger generations work openly together. The exuberance, polish, and charisma of the best of those Vermont summer performances live on in Musicians from Marlboro tours to concert venues across the U.S.

The Musicians from Marlboro have given a number of concerts with UChicago Presents over the years, and this season they return with a new generation of artists who bring a program of classic chamber works plus one written in the last decade. 

Kate Soper is a performer-composer who explores the integration of drama and words into bold and quirky music. Her work in which the flutes speak and the vocals mirror the flute parallels Handel’s cantata written in Rome, where the singer watches his beloved Phyllis sleep, while she dreams of another. Piano trios by Schubert and Brahms bookend the program. Schubert wrote his intimate and luxurious work when he was thirty years old. Brahms’ unabashedly Romantic trio reflects the sensibilities and ardor of the twenty-year-old composer. 

Presented with support from Hanna Holborn Gray