At BUTI, the Hills Are Alive

给高中演奏家的：主要是音乐，一点恶作剧

Watch this video on YouTube

The dedicated and talented high school students of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute talk about practicing, friendship, and living and breathing music.

Fanning out across green fields and grassy hills in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, the BU Tanglewood Institute is where Fame meets Hogwarts. It is also a committed high school musician’s dream, where unrelenting discipline and youthful mischief coexist in perfect—well, almost—harmony.

“我

Now scattered among the major symphonies of the United States, those who’ve attended the joyously acronymed summer program (“Shake your BUTI,” a dance poster suggests) never forget the experience. Since 1967 it’s been a place where at a still-tender age life and music converge. Whether they’re part of the orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, or chamber groups, the students play at least eight hours a day, with some time off on the weekends. But it’s not unusual for informal quartets or trios to come together at a small performance shed or just start jamming on the lawn.

“W

“We have students from 38 states and 12 foreign countries, most graduating seniors, some returning to BUTI for a second year,” says Hoffman. There are 14 BUTI alumni in the BSO, and a congenial connection exists between the school and the great orchestra, with BSO members returning to teach and students invited to attend the Tanglewood concerts free. In late July, weeks after their arrival, they were all still giddy from hearing the BSO perform Mahler’s 2nd Symphony.

μ

If BUTI’s lush surroundings and ethereal music spawn fleeting, impulsive romances (the RAs are sometimes called upon to drag lip-locked teenagers back to their respective dorms), they have also ignited love affairs that grew into marriages, Hoffman says. But mostly it’s about friends, says Winder, who was recently accepted at the Peabody Institute in her hometown of Baltimore. “When I first came here it was totally different from anything I’m used to,” she says. “You’re just completely surrounded by wonderful musicians all the time; it’s really inspiring.” A John Coltrane lover who is also drawn to the classical sax repertoire, Winder says BUTI changed her life. “If I had to explain this place to my nonmusician friends back home,” she says, “I just couldn’t.”

When you’re at BUTI, says Jonathan Yeung, 17, a percussionist from Hong Kong, “you see just how magnificent music can be.”

Editor's Picks