In Summer, Kneisel Hall echoes with mystery, mastery of music

Kneisel Hall’s cozy, tree-shaded Blue Hill campus seems quiet when you walk among the low wooden buildings. A 20-something student might amble by, lugging a cello case, and the sound of a buzz saw might sometimes pierce the air, since the Faculty Hall is under renovation – but otherwise, it’s deceptively still.

Inside those buildings, though, the musicians that are part of the venerable summer chamber music festival make a beautiful kind of noise. Some of the finest professional musicians in the country teach some of the most promising young students and have done so each summer for the past 106 years.

While the quality of the musicians present is the main reason for the high standard of art produced at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the location also plays a big part. If you’re a student or professional living in New York City, under the considerable pressure of constant practice and performance, you’d be crazy not to take the chance to come to rural coastal Maine for seven weeks in the summer.

Those two aspects are what initially drew Max Treitler to Kneisel when he was a 20-year-old student of the cello.

“That summer was one of the most wonderful stretches of time I ever experienced,” said Treitler. “There’s something very nice about Blue Hill. The people, the art, just the town itself. I fell in love.”

Treitler, now 38, was a student at the San Francisco Conservatory, and later a New York resident, and spent seven summers learning at Kneisel, under the tutelage of Kneisel artistic director Seymour Lipkin and cellists George Sopkin and Barbara Stein Mallow. He’d return to urban living after an idyllic summer of music, ocean, sun and friendship – but as he grew older, he knew something was missing. He came to visit Blue Hill in the summer, and each year found it harder and harder to leave.

The changes that occurred in New York City in the late ’90s, during the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani, sealed the deal for him.

“[The city] was getting cleaner and fancier. That drove me away. My city was getting eviscerated,” said Treitler. “I started making some more friends up here, and the time I spent in Blue Hill became more and more extended. I found myself more human here than there. And then I just came here full time.”

Four years ago, Treitler moved to Blue Hill. Two years ago, he purchased the Blue Hill Wine Shop. And though he no longer considers himself a professional musician, his association with Kneisel continues. This season, the cellist will perform a concert in August with his friend Chris Nemeth, a pianist from Chicago. They have not yet set a date or program.

As for what he learned during his summers spent at Kneisel, well, they are invaluable to his growth as both a musician and a person. As current students will attest, Kneisel’s laid-back yet artistically intense atmosphere is perfect for making some seriously wonderful music.

“It’s all about balance,” he said. “It’s not competitive. There’s a real attention to trying to produce beautiful things. A lot of musicians, they come to Kneisel knowing that it’s kind of a break from the norm. There’s a combination of intensity and very rigorous work, tempered with so much kindness and communication. It’s a very unique place in a very competitive world [of classical music].”

The Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival Summer 2008 Schedule

Kneisel Hall Concerts began on June 20, and will run through Aug. 22. The concerts take place at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and 4 p.m. Sundays on the Kneisel Hall campus, off Route 1 in Blue Hill. For information or tickets, call 374-2811.

Here’s a look at the remaining events:

Program Three: July 4 and 6, violinist Laurie Smukler; violist Doris Lederer; cellists Jerry Grossman, Joel Krosnick, Barbara Stein Mallow and pianists Jane Coop and Seymour Lipkin and guest violinist Hiroko Yajima perform Mozart, Beethoven, Carter and Smetana.

Program Four: July 11 and 13, Smukler, Lederer, Grossman, Krosnick, Mallow, Coop, Lipkin and guests, violinist Yajima, violist Ira Weller and bassist Eric Schetzen perform Bach, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky.

Program Five: July 18 and 20, Smukler, Lederer, Grossman, Krosnick, Mallow, Coop and Lipkin perform Beethoven, Prokofiev and Dvorak.

Program Six: July 25 and 27, violinist Ronald Copes, Smukler, violist Katherine Murdock, Lederer, Grossman, Krosnick, Mallow, Coop, Lipkin and pianist Marian Hahn perform Leclair, Beethoven, Prokoviev and Dohnanyi.

Program Seven: Aug. 1 and 3, Copes, Smukler, Murdock, Lederer, Grossman, Krosnick, Mallow, Coop, Lipkin, Hahn and guest violist Ira Weller perform Leclair, Beethoven, Prokoviev and Dohnanyi.

Program Eight: Aug. 8 and 10, Copes, Smukler, Murdock, Grossman, Krosnick, Lipkin and Hahn perform Haydn, Hindemith and Beethoven.

Program Nine: Aug. 15 and 17, Lipkin and vocalist Randall Scarlata perform Schubert’s “Die Schone Mullerin.”

Program Ten: Aug. 22 and 24, A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra performs Bach, Britten and Mendelssohn.

Special Concerts: A Tribute to George Sopkin, featuring the iO Quartet performing Haydn, Johnston and Britten, 7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11; ACMI Faculty Concert, featuring Wolfe, Woolweaver and Tchekoratova, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13.