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For two weeks every June, young composers and musicians gather on the shores of Lake Dunmore in Leicester. It\u2019s not quite summer camp, but not far off, either. Within the grassy borders of the New Music on the Point<\/a> Festival\u2019s modest campus, attendees find a small utopia.<\/p>\n The homey grounds, lake access and communal meals all help inspire and support participants and faculty as they nurture new music \u2014 an arena of creativity that takes for its raw material practically all available sources of sound, from teacups and toy pianos to electronics. This broad tolerance engenders an utterly unique atmosphere of curiosity, experimentation and camaraderie.<\/p>\n Seven Days<\/em> visited on the third day of the festival, known as NMOP (\u201cn-mop\u201d) and now in its 16th year, to experience dinner and a concert. These public events \u2014 the next is on Thursday, June 11 \u2014 are held in the Rec Hall, where everyone eats at long tables before filling benches in the adjacent performance space. The public can also attend concerts of festival premieres on Wednesday, June 10, and Saturday, June 13, at the Salisbury Meetinghouse; and \u201cSongbooks,\u201d a public singing workshop followed by a festival performance of John Cage\u2019s wildly inventive Song Books<\/em>, from 1970, on Friday, June 12, at Burlington\u2019s Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center.<\/p>\n I was met by festival owner and executive director Jenny Beck, a former entrepreneur and music enthusiast, and Amy Williams, a composition professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has served as artistic director for the past 11 years. Williams and her team whittled this year\u2019s 160 applicants down to 51 participants; they range in age from 19 to 32 and traveled from the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the UK. The group has nearly even numbers of performers, composers and performer-composers. The faculty of 12 includes the well-regarded Bergamot Quartet<\/a>, three of whom are former participants.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t say the M-word,\u201d Beck joked with Williams as the appearance of mosquitoes jolted us into a quick tour. Beck took me first across a large lakeside lawn toward disparate sounds of music making. They were coming from miniature barn sheds \u2014 the kind you get at Lowe\u2019s, with one small window \u2014 hand-labeled with composers\u2019 names such as \u201cB. Britten\u201d and \u201cMonk\u201d (more likely Meredith than Thelonious). These are among the camp\u2019s 29 practice rooms, and they contain some of its nine pianos.<\/p>\n Other participants were playing Ping-Pong or shooting a basketball from the grass into a hoop nailed to a tree. One had just emerged from a swim and was chatting at the end of a dock with another floating in a kayak; more watercraft were piled up nearby on the grass. Some participants may have been resting in the \u201cdorms\u201d \u2014 long wood cabins with bunk beds.<\/p>\n