A small faculty works with approximately fifty young artists of collegiate and graduate level at the beginning of their professional careers, concentrating almost exclusively on chamber music for strings and piano.
The origins of the festival date back to 1902, when violinist Franz Kneisel first brought his students to his summer home in Blue Hill.
Felix Kahn, a friend and amateur cellist, built him a large hall on the side of Blue Hill Mountain, a building with a resonant wood interior that has been the center of the festival's activities ever since.
However, in 1951, the great patron of American chamber music Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge suggested that a festival be held at Kneisel's Blue Hill concert hall to mark the 25th anniversary of its founder's death.
Over the past decade, faculty members have included Ronald Copes, Laurie Smukler, Roman Totenberg, Doris Lederer, Katherine Murdock, Jerry Grossman, Joel Krosnick, Barbara Stein-Mallow, Jane Coop, Seymour Lipkin, Marian Hahn, Joel Smirnoff, Dmitry Kouzov, David Bowlin, Qing Jiang, Ieva Jokubaviciute [fr], Ira Weller, and Matti Raikaillo.