George Hamlin, producing director of the Loeb, calls the Rep the most visible of Summer School arts programs, both because of its successful 16-year history and because "we do more than anyone else"--48 performances worth.

The Rep is not the most democratic ensemble, at least when it comes to participation in its performances. While Dance Center students pool their talents with professionals on-stage and off, theater students must content themselves instead with the handful of Theatre Arts courses offered by the Summer School--in the summer the Loeb becomes the exclusive province of professionals.

Hamlin recruits members of the Rep from New York, Boston and various drama schools, and he says the recruitment process is not much of a problem. "This theater and summer operation have a tremendous reputation across the country. If I were to ask someone if he wanted to be in the company, he would automatically say yes," he says.

This summer--in addition to the opening play by Shaw, which will open July 4 and run through July 24, the Loeb will host Life with Father and That Championship Season for 12 nights each. All three are geared to fulfilling the second need Crooks outlined--providing what Hamlin calls "background enrichment" for Summer School students and the community at large.

The Summer School Chamber Players

This most select of Summer School musical organizations is Kirchner's four-year-old brainchild, and its composition and rehearsal schedule are both very much in line with his ideal of musical training--intensive immersion in the theory and practice of music by a group of top-flight musicians, both young hotshots and more experienced pros.

A long-time advocate of granting credit for musical performance combined with analysis, Kirchner has always focused his efforts on the upper crust of Harvard musicians. "Unless you have a high-powered, hot center, the other stuff turns to garbage, like finger-painting," he says. But while Music 180, the advanced performance course Kirchner pioneered, remains relatively elite--last year it accepted only 29 of 100 applicants--the course seems downright plebeian alongside the Chamber Players.

For the Chamber Players, Kirchner culls from 180 the top musicians at Harvard (this year, Lynn Chang, Robert Portney, Richard and Judy Kogan and Yo-Yo Ma), selects another seven or eight young musicians from across the country ("the best students" of "the best teachers"), and then invites four or five pros, mostly Marlboro Music Festival alumni, to join in a series of Monday night chamber concerts throughout the summer.

According to Kirchner, to really perform well, the very best must work very hard--"to the bone, to the point of almost suicide." The Chamber Players live and breathe music about 10 to 12 hours a day, split between rehearsal and practice time. In general, one "elder" plays in each ensemble to provide musical guidance for the younger musicians, but Kirchner stresses that young and old interact with "real equality" throughout the intensive program. "We criticize each other," he says. "It's part of growing up in music."

This year the Chamber Players are presenting five concerts, each featuring a work by Schubert and an American composer--including one piece by Kirchner himself.

Kirchner considers the Chamber Players only an "infinitesimal thing," compared to the "powerful curricular approach" to the arts which he feels is really needed at Harvard. But next year, even the Chamber Players face extinction because of University budget cuts, unless President Bok or Dean Rosovsky intervenes.

"Bok has been good to the arts," Kirchner says. "But he's got to be better."

The Cantabrigia Orchestra, Chorus and Band

Musically-inclined Summer School students--and other community members--who aren't exactly Chamber Players material will still have plenty of opportunities to exercise their musical talents this summer.

The Summer School Orchestra and Chorus, both directed by Michael Zearott, require auditions, but the standards are not too demanding, and the spectrum of people accepted is fairly wide, according to Julie Montgomery, who handles promotion for the Summer School arts program. Orchestra members generally include all stripe of musician from ardent high schoolers to professional union members anxious not to pass the summer without performing.

Once through auditions, chorus and orchestra members rehearse twice a week and begin and end their concert season in August with separate performances in Sanders Theater.

Woodwind, brass and percussion players who don't make the orchestra needn't despair: there's always the Summer School Band under the direction of Tom Everett. They don't even require auditions. And they only rehearse once a week. "We just want to give people an opportunity to come together and make some music," Everett says.