Classical Music Echoes on Fantasy Island

It was the summer of 1963 when a young violinist stood on the Meadowmount School of Music stage and performed his interpretation of Maurice Ravel’s rhapsodic “Tzigane.”His name was Itzhak Perlman, the Israeli-American who today undeniably reigns as a virtuoso of violin. And, nearly 51 years ago, he so moved one Toby Friedlander—a young girl, and fellow musician, seated in the audience—that he found her waiting for him in the wings with an odd proposal.

“I heard him play—I went backstage and I asked him to marry me. And here we are,” the now Ms. Perlman said on Sunday afternoon with a casual smirk aimed at her husband, seated across the table inside their resident studio at the Perlman Music Program campus on Shelter Island, which they co-founded 20 years ago to inspire gifted young artists much like themselves all those years ago.

“I believe that every child should be exposed to music and the arts, because you never know,” she said. “You never know when a kid will fall in love. You never know when you find a talent.”

With a definitive dream, the Perlmans kicked off the Perlman Music Program in 1993 in East Hampton, despite their limited resources and lack of experience.

“The first year, every room in our house in East Hampton was filled with students practicing scales,” Mr. Perlman recalled. “At 8 o’clock in the morning, that’s what we woke up to, because we didn’t have enough space.”

What started as a two-week summer music seminar for string players—bouncing between rental spaces, including the former Boys Harbor camp in East Hampton and what is now Stony Brook Southampton—has blossomed into a program nestled on 28 acres of shoreline real estate on Shelter Island, a haven for the program’s students. That includes 21-year-old Max Tan, who has attended the camp since 2007. He will perform alongside his fellow students and the camp’s faculty musicians during the program’s first summer concert, “Classical Collaborations,” on Friday, June 6, at the Southampton Cultural Center, and Saturday, June 7, at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton.

“I think it was a very lucky accident I ended up here,” the Connecticut native said, “because I think the environment that the Perlmans create at this program was perfect for me at the time.”

Mr. Tan admits that he was a “late bloomer,” picking up violin at age 9. “My dad wasn’t sure that I was going to catch up to all of the other kids who started when they were 4 or 5,” he explained.

Still, without his son’s knowing, the elder Mr. Tan sent in an application to the Perlman Music Program, complete with three DVDs, protected by plastic sandwich bags, that guaranteed him a spot.

But not all students get in. The application process itself is a rigorous one, no matter the program. The Summer Music School, for students age 12 to 18, is a seven-week summer camp—open to them year-to-year until they graduate—while the Chamber Music Workshop, directed by cellist Merry Peckham, is an intensive, two-and-a-half-week program where students age 18 and up are expected to perform, periodically, with ensembles. Although many students return every summer, they are asked to reapply every year alongside a new string of eager musicians, making the Chamber Music Workshop one of the most competitive summer music programs in the world.

“We’re getting people from all over the world who are just taking the first steps to really brilliant careers in music. And they get inspired and push themselves in different ways,” Ms. Peckham said. “They’ll do things that you didn’t even imagine they could do, and then they do it together. And, you know, when you see people do stuff together where they are pushing themselves, it’s even more powerful sometimes.”

Ms. Peckham said she founded the Chamber Music Workshop with Ms. Perlman 11 years ago as an outlet for the Summer Music School alumni to focus specifically on chamber music. “If somebody can know how to play chamber music, then there’s a beginning of somebody who’s a very good musician,” Mr. Perlman explained. “If you don’t have this experience, you haven’t experienced good music.”

A superstar on violin, Mr. Perlman is a normal guy on campus—from riding his motorized scooter to the practice studio to socializing with his students during downtime. But the reason the camp is such a success is no secret to his wife.

“A lot of the ability to make it happen was because I’m married to a famous guy,” Ms. Perlman said, the couple’s two Portuguese water dogs, Muttek and Boychik, taking an afternoon nap on her lap. “I don’t kid myself for that.”

A few minutes later, the sound of her husband’s violin could be heard echoing across the long, green campus and down to the shoreline of the private beach. About a half hour earlier, Mr. Perlman had politely excused himself to go teach a lesson—an experience that has rendered even the greats speechless.

“I remember the first time I got to sit down 5 feet away from Itzhak and play music with him,” Ms. Peckham said. “I actually couldn’t play. He started playing and I went, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ because his sound is one of the most beautiful things ever.”

Driving past the Perlman Music Program campus, one could easily mistake the Clark Arts Center—the gift of Kristy and James M. Clark—the dining hall and various studio cottages for just another summer camp. It certainly evokes the feeling of laid-back gleefulness that comes only from dormitory life in early June. However, by rolling down the windows, the sounds of Brahms, Beethoven and Bach can be heard from the little white buildings on the hill, where the students live together, work together and play together.

“Just getting on the ferry to Shelter Island does something to a person, anyway,” Ms. Peckham said. “But, then, when you get to this campus and you realize that it’s a place where it’s going to all be about the music and the relationships and friendships and learning and bringing out the best in people, it becomes ‘Fantasy Island.’ It’s no longer Shelter Island.”

The Perlman Music Program will kick off its annual summer concert series with “Classical Collaborations” on Friday, June 6, at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Cultural Center. Tickets are $50, or free for children age 18 and under. An additional performance will be held on Saturday, June 7, at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton. For more information, call (212) 877-5045, or visit perlmanmusicprogram.org.