Apple Hill

This weekend the school hosted its first guest artists of the year: The Apple Hill Chamber Players from the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. Not only did the school host its first guest artists but it also organized its first non-athletic, on-campus, weekend event. Normally on weekends the school looks outward from campus-towards Amman's Mall's, Madaba's snacks, and Jordan's parks and trails- for entertainment. Except for athletic matches, events rarely come onto campus. This was one reason why I especially wanted to see The Apple Hill Chamber Players: because I wanted to support the school in its efforts to make its campus a fun and exciting place for its students and community. The concert was Friday night from 7:30-9:00 and was completely free of charge. And, although I am not very good at estimating numbers, I would say that the show filled about 90 seats in the auditorium. Now, about Apple Hill; The Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, located in Nelson, NH, is an organization whose goals are "to teach chamber music at the highest standard" and to bring together musicians of various ages and backgrounds to play chamber music and thus promote peace and understanding in the world. The center works towards these goals in two ways. It provides quality instruction in chamber music through its Summer Chamber Music Workshop. This workshop is open to musicians of all ages and skill levels and is taught by the centers own Apple Hill Chamber Players as well as various guest faculty. The workshop lasts through the summer and is divided into five ten-day sessions. During these ten days, musicians stay on the 110 campus- playing chamber music, assisting in various maintenance tasks, and sleeping in cabins. During the rest of the year, the center works towards its other goal by sending its four person chamber ensemble, the Apple Hill Chamber Players, to destinations all around Europe and the Middle East as part of its "Playing for Peace" program. While on tour, the players perform concerts and award summer chamber workshop scholarships to musicians from various countries and ethnicities with political/ideological differences. For example, "Playing for Peace" began in 1988 when it awarded scholarships to Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Palestinian musicians. The musicians attended the summer workshop where they became good friends. Since then, Apple Hill has brought musicians together from areas such as Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland, Georgia/Russia, and Turkey/Cyprus. And something that I didn't know until this evening is that Apple Hill has been hosting a workshop here on campus for last two days. I guess Apple Hill tries to bring musicians together wherever they play, even if only for a short time. Anyway, the workshop here at King's included about five or six King's Academy students as well as about 15 young musicians (ages 14-25) from Syria and Jordan. It lasted for about two and a half days and concluded with today's student performance. During those 2.5 days all the students involved met and practiced randomly assigned, small groups. And, somehow, during those 2.5 days these students managed to not only learn the music but also learn how to play with one another. I'm thinking the latter task would be difficult because I'm sure the students were all at slightly different levels and each had slightly different styles of playing. But the student performances were all fantastic, featuring mostly classical music but also some 19th and 20th century works.