By Heather Keller
Photographs by Carlin Ma

About a mile up the street from the Tanglewood campus, a grand stone mansion emerges surrounded by over 60 acres of pastoral landscape. This Gilded Age setting is home to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and, come June, it’s anything but tranquil. Four hundred or so outrageously talented high school musicians will descend, hand-picked from 40 states and 15 countries. The campus becomes electric as they arrive for what could be the most rigorous, exciting, and inspiring musical experience of their young lives.

“The high school students who are coming to BUTI truly are Olympic-level, elite athletes of classical music,” said executive director Nicole Wendl.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the BUTI program, commemorated with performances, events, and concerts throughout the summer. Highlights include alumni from across the decades performing side by side with this year’s students, and events featuring world-renowned artists Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, and John Luther Adams.

At BUTI, the students take the spotlight. “You’re immersed,” recalled Josh Baker, associate principal bassoonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and BUTI alumnus. Originally from Idaho, where few people had his passion and dedication to classical music, attending BUTI was the first time he realized music could be his profession.

“The students inspired me, the workshops, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Symphony that you get to listen to every week—that was going from 0 to 100 in the best way possible,” said Baker. “I realized, okay, maybe I have to play more scales!”

Madeline Cagle, a French horn player studying music performance at LSU, also came to BUTI from a small town in Alabama. “BUTI is intense. You break out of your shell,” she said. “You meet people, and realize, wow—this might be a possibility for me.”

For the public coming to hear Tanglewood concerts, the BUTI performances might be the summer’s best-kept secret. Tickets are low-priced and, in some cases, free, and the experience can be exhilarating.

“The students are just so excited. They let go and take more risks,” said BUTI alum and clarinetist Jose Aguilar, now at Northwestern studying music and international relations. “That’s a really cool thing to experience in music.”

The clarinetist noted that sometimes the beauty and joy in a piece of music can be overlooked in pursuit of technical perfection.

“In orchestra jobs, you play the same thing over and over again, and it doesn’t always bring you the same amount of joy and fulfillment as it does those first times,” he said. “A BUTI performance is exactly that first time, and it’s so special to be able to hear that.”