The numbers tell at least part of the story: 200 visiting artists each year, many of them recurrent visitors, and 73 Pulitzer Prizes already notched up by the 'fellows', as past residents are known.
For his final visit to the colony Donald Macleod explores the breadth of disciplines exhibited by the artists, musicians such as Meredith Monk who represents the heart of MacDowell's vision of the visitors' cabins as places where creators could explore every facet of their craft and interests.
And we also hear from some of the British composers who have breathed the New Hampshire air, including Errollyn Wallen and the Oxford-born Charlotte Bray.

Meredith Monk: Skeleton Lines
Meredith Monk, voice & piano
Allison Sniffin, piano
John Hollenbeck, percussion
Bohdan Hilash, clarinet
Theo Bleckman, piano

Charlotte Bray: At the Speed of Stillness
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Violin Concerto
Pamela Frank, violin
Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra
Michael Stern, conductor

Errollyn Wallen: Daedalus
Errollyn Wallen, soprano
Brodsky Quartet. Show less