The following is a Q&A with Teresa Ling, co-artistic director of Garth Newel Music Center in Hot Springs, Virginia. She is also the violinist in the Garth Newel Piano Quartet. On a particularly hot day in DC, I spoke to Teresa about what seems like an idyllic summer escape (she assured me temperatures are 10 degrees cooler there than in the city.) The conversation has been lightly edited.
NL: Would you explain the lovely name Garth Newel?
TL: A lot of people think it’s somebody, but it’s actually a Welsh phrase that means “new hearth” or “new home” and it’s been in existence for over 100 years now.
NL: It seems like an idyllic environment to hear music, enjoy a gourmet meal and even stay overnight at the mansion.
TL: Garth Newel is nestled in the Allegheny Mountains. The county has fewer than 5,000 people; it’s mostly national forest, and so when you come up the driveway it’s like you're leaving all your cares behind. It’s an opportunity to hear great music in a really comfortable and welcoming atmosphere. Many people meet new friends and they decide to come back week and year after year to meet each other. They get a chance to sit at dinner with musicians who have just played a concert. It’s primarily chamber music, but we do offer other types of music as well, like blues and jazz, and we have a wonderful swing band coming for one of our weekends, so it’s just a really wonderful retreat from the cares of the city. One of the claims to fame of Bath County is that there’s no traffic light in the whole county, so you’re not likely to run into traffic jams while you’re in the area.
Our Summer Series is our busiest time of year. It’s a spectacularly beautiful time of year and we have a lot of great guest artists: for example, Aisslinn Nosky, a very well-known baroque violinist. She’s going to be playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (like you’ve never heard it before!—NL) with all of our fellow musicians. We have an emerging artists program which brings in fabulous young musicians from all over the world and they come here for 4 weeks to study great works of chamber music, so they will be performing a lot of the concerts as well.
We have a fantastic singer, mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor, who is going to provide the grand finale for our season. She’ll be doing a song recital with Robert Spano on piano and she’ll also be doing some vocal chamber music with some of us string players and piano, and we just have some fantastic other guest artists...Jennifer Frautschi, Violaine Melançon, Dana Kelly, terrific string players who are coming in.
We also have Piano Extravaganza Week, where we have 4 pianists who all play together, and they just bring down the house every year. We have String Extravaganza featuring the Attacca and the Pacifica Quartets. So, we just have a great, great slate of guest artists.
It’s an incredibly varied program. There’s something for everybody to enjoy if you love the great masterpieces of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Dvorak, but we are also showcasing a lot of great American composers in honor of our 250 birthday--a diverse range beginning in the 19th century with Arthur Foote and Amy Beach, up to the present with Paul Wiancko.
We have a fantastic chef on staff here at Garth Newel. He not only cooks after the concerts for the patrons and musicians, but during the week when we’re rehearsing, we get a chance to eat his food, and he’s a superb chef. We take good care of all our guest artists, so I think they enjoy coming.
NL: Are concerts mostly on weekends?
TL: For the most part, they’re usually on Saturday and Sunday. There is one instance where the Pacifica Quartet will be performing Friday and Saturday.
NL: I read that your concert hall was originally a stable?
TL: Well, that’s part of what makes the concerts so welcoming. The actual hall used to be a riding ring. It was where the founders of Garth Newel used to show their prize-winning Arabian horses. It’s been repurposed to be a concert hall, so the dirt floors are now wooden floors, and we do have a stage. It provides a great ambiance for a concert.
We can get about 125 people so it’s a really intimate experience, and I think that’s also why people love to hear concerts there. The acoustics are excellent. You can hear everything very clearly and it’s just a wonderful place to hear chamber music.
NL: What’s the best way to find out more about the schedule, etc.?
TL: The best way to find out more about Garth Newel is to go to our website.
The actual estate, which is 114 acres, is in Hot Springs, VA. We’re about 3 1/2 to 4 hours from the DC area depending on where you are and how fast you drive.
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