Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music

OUR STORY

Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music is the dream of an undergraduate musician who envisioned teaching students, family and friends in a peaceful setting over the summer months. Incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)3 in 1971, Apple Hill still resides on 100 rural acres in Nelson, New Hampshire which we’re proud to responsibly steward with the help of the Monadnock Conservancy.

In 1973, Apple Hill's faculty of young performing artists cemented their legacy for teaching, performance, and commissioning of chamber music at the highest level as the Apple Hill Chamber Players; today New Hampshire's preeminent professional chamber ensemble is known as the Apple Hill String Quartet. The Quartet performs concerts and conducts educational residencies locally in New Hampshire, nationally in major U.S. cities, and internationally around the globe. As Apple Hill's Artistic Directors and resident musicians, the Quartet offers a professional concert series on campus every summer in collaboration with our Summer Chamber Music Workshop faculty and guest artists. Neighbors, community members and visitors join us annually in our vintage Concert Barn for ten extraordinary performances featuring music from the historic canon, new commissions, undiscovered works and overlooked or suppressed composers. Lawn seating is always free.

We will never waiver in our core belief that music, education and shared cultural experiences belong to all human beings, no matter their skill or background. 

Through partnerships with music education programs throughout the country and the world, Apple Hill ensures access, equity, and inclusion thanks to our generous tuition assistance program. We allocated $340,000 for scholarships this year and will welcome 285 students to our Nelson campus, our highest total in nearly a decade due to COVID. 

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Central to Apple Hill’s mission is Playing for Peace, founded in 1989 to assemble musicians from areas in political conflict to play chamber music together. Today, Playing for Peace  brings students and faculty from around the country and the world, including those who are underrepresented in classical music, separated by racial or ethnic discord, or by differences of gender, ideology, religion, age, or playing level, together to learn and grow at Apple Hill.

Everything Playing for Peace stands for — from teaching and community-building based on mutual respect, acceptance, listening to each other, and supporting and cultivating each student’s unique abilities, no matter what a student’s skill level or experience — has become ingrained in our mission and is taught through the five skills of chamber music: watching, listening, flexibility, sensitivity, and adapting within a group.

OUR OPPORTUNITY

Thanks to the generous support of three Apple Hill alumni (two are current participants) who have offered to match your donations dollar-for-dollar up to $10K, Apple Hill has a timely opportunity of raising $20,000 in much needed funding through NH Gives.  

"Apple Hill has been important to our family, for both Seth and me. Seth found his musical direction there and has said that Apple Hill is his favorite place on the planet." Dan Goodman

"Not everyone gets to do the thing they most love until the last moment of their lives. But that happened with my dad, Bob Gillman, in 2003 at Apple Hill." Matt Gillman

Reaching our $10,000 fundraising goal will provide Apple Hill with:

Much needed backing to fuel our mission at a time of increasing global need for humanity, civil discourse and connection. 

Scholarships--Apple Hill held tuition rates steady this year and is fully committed to meeting the needs of 75% of students who requested tuition assistance. 

Funds that will help ensure Apple Hill can meet rising costs as we welcome our largest group in nearly a decade back to campus post-pandemic.

Will you help us reach our NH Gives 2026 goal? Your gift can become $20,000 in mission making opportunity!

With your donation and our alumni matching it dollar for dollar ($25 becomes $50, $250 becomes $500, $500 becomes $1,000) we will not only continue to support musicians of all ages at Apple Hill through welcoming, accessible, supportive music education and performances in our 18th-century concert barn and in schools in rural communities, we will grow during a time we're absorbing the impact of deep federal and state funding cuts targeting arts and culture organizations, particularly those who are welcoming and inclusive of all people.

Thank you for your generous support!