At Monadnock, an era comes to an end

James Bolle wasn't out to create a New England institution when he founded Monadnock Music in 1966. He simply wanted to gather some like-minded colleagues who would devote themselves to music that wasn't widely played at the time, including early music and contemporary fare. That first summer they played five concerts, in churches and town halls in New Hampshire's Monadnock region. All were free.

Forty-one years later, Monadnock has become a fixed point in New England's impressive constellation of music festivals. Its season now stretches across six crowded weeks and embraces orchestral performances and concert operas, in addition to chamber and solo concerts. It boasts a distinguished roster of alumni and frequent guests, including the pianists Russell Sherman and Konstantin Lifschitz. While some of its concerts now require paid tickets, a large number remain free. Perhaps most remarkably, Monadnock has never lost its exploratory spirit, with offerings that touch down on widely diverse points on the musical map.

As the 76-year-old Bolle puts it during a phone interview, "We wanted to have a place where we could avoid the automatic."

This season is Bolle's last as Monadnock's music director: He's retiring, largely to devote more time to composing. (He was a student of Darius Milhaud.) On Friday, the festival will celebrate his tenure with an orchestral concert featuring two of his own works, accompanied by the world premiere of a piece by Mark Kuss, a variety of whose compositions have been played at Monadnock.

Looking back at the festival's origin, Bolle makes a comparison with New York City Ballet, the pioneering dance company founded by George Balanchine in the 1940s. "The fact that they didn't have a lot of money meant that they could do a lot of things more daringly, without so much overhead," he says. "I was very aware of that."

One way to measure Monadnock's daring is the number of composers who have heard their work played there. It's an astonishingly catholic group that includes Aaron Copland, Mario Davidovsky, Charles Wuorinen, and Joan Tower, among many others. John Adams and Peter Sellars first met there.

Probably Monadnock's closest bond is with Elliott Carter, whose music Bolle was programming long before it was deemed fit for mainline ensembles. He makes another comparison, this one between Carter's pieces and the novels of Henry James. "They're wonderful; they're also very . . . I don't want to say complicated, but deep," he says. "You have to make some commitment to get something out of them."

Bolle's two works on next weekend's program are the Sinfonia No. 2: "E" and "Piano Concert." The former is, literally, brought to you by the letter "E." "I thought of all the words that began with the letter, like 'exhilarate,' 'excite,' 'electric,' " he explains. "Somehow it suggested great energy."

Of "Piano Concert," he mentions that its inspiration came from two sources that are about as disparate as one can imagine: Francois Couperin and Fats Waller. "I don't think you'd probably notice either one," he acknowledges with a laugh. The soloist will be Alan Feinberg, who, Bolle says, candidly remarked to him, "This is the oddest piece I've ever seen."

Feinberg is one of a trio of music directors who'll replace Bolle next season; the others are violist Jonathan Bagg and flutist Laura Gilbert.

Before Friday's concert, a symposium will allow some longtime participants and colleagues to reminisce, discuss the festival's importance, and salute their outgoing leader.

Bolle, though, seems somewhat disinclined to make grand pronouncements about his tenure. He simply wanted to program music he thought should be heard, and he spent 42 seasons doing just that.

"We've tried to be a home for creative musicians -- both performers and composers -- and attentive and curious audiences," he says.