Leah Kohn began what would become her life’s work while she was a third-grader at the Ray School in Hanover, New Hampshire. While some of the details of her epiphany-turned-career are a bit blurry, Leah remembers that a wind trio came to the school to perform in an outreach concert. She saw, heard, became enthralled, and scurried home to tell her mother that she wanted to play the bassoon. (In retrospect, she is grateful her mother knew what a bassoon was.) Her parents carted her off to Janet Polk, a local bassoonist and teacher, who welcomed the child’s interest but advised that study would have to wait until Leah’s hands had grown enough to be able to play the instrument. So profound was her disappointment that Leah “burst into tears,” and returned home to wait impatiently. She remembers “drinking my milk” in an effort to hurry the growth process along. Approximately a year later, her wish came true and she began to study the bassoon, her hands still just a tad too small.

 

Now, a couple of decades later, she and husband Niv Ashkenazi are founders of and performers in the Oak Hill Music Festival, scheduled for June 25 through June 29, 2025, in the Upper Valley. It is the festival’s fourth season, located in a place that is still somewhat home to Leah. While she and Niv live in California, she was raised in Hanover where her parents remain, and her father continues to teach at Dartmouth College. She appreciates the already rich cultural scene in the Upper Valley but wanted to bring something new to the area—a summer chamber music festival with world-class musicians. In 2022, even though constrained by the restrictions of the COVID pandemic, she gathered musicians she knew or who were recommended by colleagues and staged a first concert in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and Norwich, Vermont.

 

Diversity and Local Ties

Since the inaugural festival, a majority of the artists have returned each season, descending upon the Upper Valley for a period of 10 days or so to rehearse and perform. What brings them here? Two of the four musicians interviewed for this article (in addition to Leah) have substantial Upper Valley connections. For his day job, Nick Browne commutes from his home in Montpelier to Dartmouth College, where he is a lecturer of double bass and bass guitar. He appreciates “the opportunity to perform with world-class musicians close to home during the summer,” because of course summer in the Upper Valley is not to be missed. Zach Sheets is a flutist and composer, and a former native of the Upper Valley. In addition to performing, he currently works at Community Music Center of Boston, the largest outside provider of arts education to the Boston public schools, where he’s leading a capital campaign “to own and operate our first-ever permanent cultural facility in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood.” For him, the Oak Hill performances “are thrilling, live-wire, and joyful. The group of musicians that Leah and Niv have assembled brings a combination of artistry, technical brilliance, and verve that is hard to beat.”

 

Playing Music with Friends in the Woods

For other artists, leaving their more urban environments behind is part of the attraction. Daniel Orsen, who plays the viola, describes it simply as a love for “playing chamber music with friends in the woods. It’s as simple as that.” Most of the artists live together in a house rented for the purpose, and more than one speaks of themselves as both colleagues and family, like violinist Keiko Tokunaga, who revealed that they even have family nicknames for each other. (Hers is “Mom.”) 

Keiko describes what happens post-rehearsal and in between performances: “As a big family of musicians, we look forward to cooking with and for each other at the end of the day. (We take turns being a leader or a follower just like chamber music.) We enjoy getting the freshest produce from a local co-op and/or harvesting herbs and fruits from the garden that is owned by our lovely VRBO hosts. On the days we are too exhausted from rehearsing, we go out and check out the local restaurants and occasionally treat ourselves to ice cream from Dairy Twirl.”

 

Stunning, Special Instruments

In addition to the artists are the instruments themselves. Niv Ashkenazi is a rare long-term holder of a violin loaned to him by Violins of Hope, a project of concerts based on a private collection of World War II–era violins, violas, and cellos. Many of the instruments belonged to Jews before and during the war and were donated by or bought from survivors or family members. The loaned violin itself is reserved for Violins of Hope concerts, but according to Niv, “Leah has made sure to program some of the wonderful pieces we have discovered while working on the Violins of Hope project and some of these pieces by composers affected by the Holocaust have become audience favorites.” And Keiko Tokunaga has her own special instrument: an 1845 Vuillaume violin that she will be playing at the festival. “Playing on an old instrument like that can be an eye-opening experience, because it can easily make the sounds you had been dreaming of (but could not produce). . . . I have been playing on it for a few years now, but I still feel like a kid in a candy store.”

For further information, a complete schedule, and to purchase tickets, check out the festival’s website at oakhillmusicfestival.com. 

 

Main Concerts

June 25, 7pm

First Congregational Church 

of Lebanon

Brahms Piano Quintet

 

June 28, 7pm

Norwich Congregational Church

“Around the World”

 

June 29, 2pm

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Hanover

Schubert Octet

 

Open Rehearsals

June 23, 2pm 

Roth Center for Jewish Life

June 27, 3pm

Howe Library