What if you could experience the music not only as a final, polished performance, but could be in the room watching its step-by-step creation?
Hanover native Leah Kohn is a professional musician who makes her home in California, with not-forgotten roots in the Upper Valley. Cofounder of the Oak Hill Music Festival, she is bringing a third season of summer concerts to the UV beginning this week. It is “a unique opportunity to enjoy intimate summer evening chamber music concerts with world-class musicians, . . . elite artists who perform with the nation’s top orchestras, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and . . . award-winning international soloists and a recent GRAMMY recipient.”
Kohn and her cofounder Niv Ashkenazi have a long list of professional credits themselves, including performances at the Kennedy Center; Niv was one of the featured soloists, alongside Yo-Yo Ma, for the soundtrack of the PBS documentary Harbor from the Holocaust.
The festival will include three full concerts (details below). But what caught my attention are the afternoon rehearsals at the Roth Center (July 9) and Howe Library (July 11). The public is invited, no admission charge, to watch how the performance is crafted. Rehearsals in past years turned out to benefit the musicians and the audience alike. Asked why they are an integral part of the festival, Leah responded:
In creating Oak Hill Music Festival, I really wanted to find ways to make it feel like something that belonged to the Upper Valley community. The main purpose of the open rehearsals is to bring music to community members who might not be able or inclined to attend a full-length evening performance, while also educating and creating an opportunity for people to get to know the musicians. We get so many great questions at these rehearsals, including questions about our instruments, how we play together without a conductor, what our sheet music looks like, and once we even had a gentleman borrow my copy of the score and follow along!
The festival will conclude on July 14 with a children’s concert presented with the Upper Valley Music Center at the Kilton Library in West Lebanon; last year’s drew approximately 85 parents and children. Are your kids a little rambunctious? Apparently not a problem. This free event was designed so that “ . . . parents could experience some excerpts from our main concert performances but without any pressure for kids to stay still and quiet.”
There’s another Upper Valley connection in the festival this year: the musicians will include Boston-based flutist Zach Sheets, originally from Norwich. He and Leah Kohn attended Hanover High but, according to Leah, “he and I haven't performed together since we were at Hanover High School in the 2000s.”
Here’s the schedule. Tickets for the concerts and more information about the festival, the founders, and musicians can be found here. (Photos courtesy of and with permission of Leah Kohn. Photo credits: Daniel Kurganov.)
July 9th, 2:30pm: Open Rehearsal at the Roth Center
July 10th, 7pm: Concert #1 "Folk Music" at First Congregational Church of Lebanon
July 11th, 3pm: Open Rehearsal at the Howe Library
July 12th, 7pm: Concert #2 "The Romantic Virtuoso" at First Congregational Church of Lebanon
July 13th, 7pm: Concert #3 "Landscapes" at Norwich Congregational Church
July 14th, 2pm: Children's Concert with UVMC at Kilton Library in West Lebanon
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