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ABOUT YELLOW BARN  Yellow Barn Music School and Festival was founded in 1969 by cellist David Wells,then chair of the Chamber Music Department at the Manhattan School of Music, and his wife, pianist Janet Wells. For over thirty years David and Janet Wells nurtured an organization which has evolved into one of the most sought-after summer training institutes in the world. They were followed at their retirement in 2002 by current artistic director Seth Knopp, founding pianist of the Peabody Trio, who has gathered together the festival's current world-renowned faculty and guest artist group, and secured for Yellow Barn its international reputation. In the beginning, the festival functioned as a small summer workshop for students of Mr. Wells and his colleagues, first primarily from New York and then from Boston and the New England Conservatory. Yellow Barn is now the summer destination for many of the best young string, piano, woodwind and percussion players anywhere, with a uniquely collaborative learning environment in which students and teachers study and perform together, exploring the great chamber music literature from the Baroque to the contemporary. It is also a vibrant summer festival presenting nearly three dozen public chamber music events in southeastern Vermont and environs each year. The organization runs two summer programs, the Young Artists Program and Yellow Barn Program. Go to MUSIC SCHOOL for more information. The musicians who perform at Yellow Barn each summer include many of today's leading figures in chamber music as well as young professionals whose stars are on the rise. Faculty and guest artists include current and former members of the Brentano, Cleveland, Juilliard, Mendelssohn, New World, Ravel, and Takács Quartets; the Apollo, Florestan, Francesco, Peabody, and Weilerstein Trios; the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; and other renowned ensembles. See FACULTY AND GUEST ARTISTS for details about 2009.  Yellow Barn students include many of the finest young musicians currently studying at, or recently graduated from Juilliard, the New England Conservatory, the Curtis Institute, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, Peabody, Yale, and other leading conservatories and schools of music. Many have already embarked on careers as performers and educators. Recent Yellow Barn alumni include the members of the Chiara, Parker and Jupiter String Quartets, So Percussion, and scores of other accomplished young artists. In addition to its summer concert season, the festival also produces an annual series of community outreach presentations including events for children, seniors, and others who are unable to attend our regular season concerts. Special events (in 2009, a gala 40th Anniversary Mountaintop Musicale at an elegant country estate near Putney) and off-season fundraising concerts dot the calendar as well, along with a recently inaugurated Residency Program for groups or solo artists at any stage of their careers. Yellow Barn is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the state of Vermont. It is governed by a volunteer board of trustees and managed by an artistic director and managing director, who supervise a dedicated year-round staff and seasonal production team. Yellow Barn does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or veteran status in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, employment policies, scholarship and loan programs, or other Yellow Barn-sponsored activities. Photos by Debbie Lazar
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