Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music

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Our Story

OUR ROOTS

Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music sprang forth as the dream of an undergraduate Harvard musician who envisioned teaching students, family and friends in a peaceful setting over the summer months. When a recession dashed initial plans, a generous philanthropist stepped in to help purchase an old farm in rural Nelson, New Hampshire, and Apple Hill officially incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)3 in 1971. The organization still resides on that same 100 acres in Nelson, which we’re proud to responsibly steward with the help of the Monadnock Conservancy.

Early Apple Hill faculty were young performing artists who enjoyed playing chamber music together and presenting informal concerts. In 1973, they took the stage in New York City and their legacy for teaching, performance, and commissioning of chamber music at the highest level grew into the Apple Hill Chamber Players, known today as the Apple Hill String Quartet, New Hampshire’s preeminent professional chamber ensemble. Apple Hill’s unique approach to community building and connection is the basis of the organization’s work, taught through the skills of chamber music - watching, listening, flexibility, sensitivity, and adapting within a group.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Central to Apple Hill’s mission is the Playing for Peace program, founded in 1989 to assemble musicians from areas in political conflict to play chamber music together. Over the span of 36 years, Playing for Peace has also become Apple Hill’s institutional philosophy of inclusion, bringing together 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.

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. 

OUR CHALLENGE

Now in our 54th year, Apple Hill faces a time of rising uncertainty here at home. The current U.S. administration’s deep funding cuts targeting arts and culture organizations, particularly those who are welcoming and inclusive of all people, strike at not just arts nonprofits like Apple Hill, but the fabric of our society. 

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

We will never change or waiver in our core belief that music and music education is the right of all human beings, no matter their skill or background. 

With our mission in clear view, we’ve launched a bold $10,000 Giving Tuesday fundraising goal that will provide Apple Hill with backing to fuel our work at a time of increasing global need for humanity and connection, and to ensure that Apple Hill can meet the increased need of students requesting tuition assistance due to inflation, job loss and other universal challenges —

Through partnerships with music education programs throughout the country and the world, Apple Hill ensures access, equity, and inclusion through our generous tuition assistance program. We allocated $315,000 for scholarships this year and will welcome over 250 students to our campus. Nearly 80% of this summer’s applicants requested financial support, a record number.

OUR OPPORTUNITY

Thanks to the generosity of a member of our board, a faithful donor and a caring staff member, your gift will go even further — Apple Hill will match all donations up to $10,000! Will you help us reach our NH Gives 2025 goal? Your gift can become $20,000 in mission making opportunity that we'll put to work today!

With your help, we will continue to support musicians of all ages here in New Hampshire through welcoming, accessible, supportive music education and performances in our 18th-century concert barn on the hill and in schools in rural communities. 

YOUR IMPACT

Your NH Gives gift will support Apple Hill’s bustling, culturally inclusive and vibrant global community of aspiring music students, adult amateurs, renowned professional musicians, and enthusiastic concert-goers. 

And your donation will make a difference right here in our local communities. A ten-day Apple Hill summer music session is particularly transformative for young people at a time many are struggling with loneliness and social skills following the COVID-19 pandemic. Connection with supportive adults—Apple Hill’s summer ensemble groups are built around the students’ common experience level, not age—builds resiliency and prevents teens from feeling isolated. Two key factors identified at a recent statewide harm prevention conference featuring local and national experts as a crucial need for New Hampshire youth in preventing depression, despair, school withdrawal and substance use.

Apple Hill’s older adult participants also benefit through inclusion, and the positive effect that learning and live music performance has on the mind — both are powerful tools in health, longevity, fulfillment and wellness. 

These connections form communities that positively impact our world now and in the future. It’s why Apple Hill alumni return year after year, and send their own kids to experience the magic that happens on our dirt road. In turn, those students increase the number of musical and thriving communities throughout the world.

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE ARTS

Thank you for investing in youth and senior mental health, the arts, our regional economy, the 100 acres of pristine Monadnock land we care for, accessible education, work skills and cultural experiences, and all the musicians who are just starting out, as well as those who are serving as working professionals or headed to orchestras, universities and cultural institutions—our dream is to give all who seek music education a welcoming, peaceful place of integrity to learn, collaborate and grow personally, professionally and musically.

Your donation during this time of unprecedented attack on the funding of nonprofit arts organizations who support all people is a critical part of our mission, and deeply appreciated by all Apple Hill alumni, students, faculty, staff, visiting artists, volunteers, concert attendees and our board of trustees. Thank you for your support!

For more information about Apple Hill and our impact, please visit https://applehill.org