Just as valuable was the impromptu contact with the players.

Before my chamber music performance I was practicing a tricky passage in Beethoven’s Septet with Harry Kaplan, a bassoonist and internist from Towson, Md. The principal trumpeter, Andrew Balio, came over to say hello. I asked him how he would phrase the passage. He gave his interpretation, and as a result we played it so much better. It was like Mariano Rivera showing you where to put your fingers for the cutter.

At night players would mingle with participants at the hotel bar. One evening Mr. Palanker, who has the air of a New York City police captain from the Bronx, regaled us with anecdotes of Baltimore conductors past. They included the maestro whose left, cuing hand moved involuntarily. He was so terrible that the players learned never to watch him. “No one noticed when he fell off the stage,” Mr. Palanker said.





The campers form the sweet spot of the symphony audience. A survey of Baltimore Symphony subscribers and single ticket buyers five years ago found that 70 percent played or had studied an instrument, which is typical elsewhere as well.

They are part of an immense amateur world of dedicated players who take part in chamber music courses and numerous community orchestras and bands. Classical music amateurs — like the doctors, researchers and professors at the academy — tend to have money to spend on such camps. With add-ons for chamber music coaching, lessons and lodging, BSO Academy costs can reach $3,000.

“Orchestras have been trying to figure out how to connect with people who have an innate passion for music but who set that aside for a career,” said Paul Meecham, the orchestra’s president and chief executive. “We’re riding that wave, of people’s need for a different kind of participation rather than just sitting in an audience.”

The payoffs have been evident if modest. Some 20 campers in the first two years became new donors, 9 became subscribers, and 13 bought individual tickets for the first time. Less tangibly, several academy students are now taking lessons with Baltimore musicians. Some have formed Facebook friendships, stayed in touch by e-mail or gone backstage after concerts to greet their symphony friends.