Every summer since 1920, the birthplace of Mozart welcomes the world’s greatest performers for five weeks of opera, drama, and concerts at the prestigious Salzburg Festival. Every summer since 1986, the Austrian city also welcomes about 50 young musicians from the University of Miami and other schools for a five-week intensive program offered through the Frost School of Music.

“European training and experience for a classical singer is fundamental; you can’t have a career without it,” explains Esther Jane Hardenbergh, assistant professor of voice and Salzburg program director at the Frost School.

Students live in dorms or with host families, and they receive daily one-on-one training in voice or piano with an impressive corps of faculty from the Frost School and other institutions. The academic host is Salzburg College, founded in the 1960s by art historian Ina Stegen to give American students the opportunity to study in her native Austria.

The program also offers German language instruction and tickets to the Salzburg Festival, where students can hobnob with the iconic musicians who convene and perform there. And this summer—the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth—“Anybody who’s anybody is in Salzburg,” Hardenbergh says.

Among annual Salzburg visitors are Frost School Dean William Hipp, Salzburg program cofounder and assistant dean emeritus Josephine Faulmann, and a group of donors who sponsor students. “You need to walk where Mozart walked, see the forest that Schubert wrote about, and listen to the people there because they are different from us,” says Hardenbergh, who participated in a similar program as a student.