The Marlboro Music School and Festival is a retreat for advanced classical training and musicianship held for seven weeks each summer in Marlboro, Vermont. Public performances are held each weekend while the school is in session, with the programs chosen only a week or so in advance from the sixty to eighty works being currently rehearsed.
The school was founded in 1951 by Rudolf Serkin, Adolf Busch, Marcel Moyse, Louis Moyse and Blanche Moyse on the site of a former dairy farm that had recently become the campus of Marlboro College. With a small size and rural environment, Marlboro Music was conceived as a retreat where young musicians could collaborate and learn alongside master artists in an environment removed from the pressures of performance deadlines or recording. Prominent musicians associated with Marlboro have included Pablo Casals, Siegfried Palm, James Levine, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Jonathan Biss, Gilbert Kalish, and members of the Guarneri Quartet.
The Marlboro Music School and Festival is currently led by Artistic Directors Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida.
During non-summer months, the festival runs the Musicians From Marlboro national touring program, with performances in many U.S. cities each year.