Groton Hill in the News

One local chapter of singers, Groton Hill’s Threshold Singers, provides a service for hospice patients with a truly unique power and gives them a gift in a way only music can. “Our primary mission is to provide peace and comfort through song to people at the threshold of life, and to their attending family, friends, and caregivers. In the rehearsals where we prepare for this service, our singers experience the calming and healing power of music for themselves,” said Charlotte Russell, Music Director for Threshold Singers of Groton Hill Music Center…  Read full story

The story of Groton Hill Music Center’s concert hall organ begins with Richard Hedgebeth. I think Richard and I saw ourselves in each other: two old-school, innovation-driven pipe organ builders. While old-school and innovation-driven may seem mutually exclusive, the reality of the organ is that it thrives on invention—think Barker levers, electric blowers, and combination actions, or even conceptual innovations like the Baroque revival. In contrast to most other traditional musical instruments, the notion of radical, perpetual evolution is embedded in the organ’s DNA…  Read full story

The bucolic farmlands of eastern Massachusetts play host to a new music education and performance facility known as Groton Hill Music Center. Its owners, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1985, describe their new home as a “126,000-square-foot love letter to sound.”…  Read full story

Groton Hill Music Center is equally equipped for acoustic and reinforced music. Anchored by an architecturally dynamic main concert hall, the building is a gathering place for private lessons, classes, ensembles, and supplemental learning programs for all ages and abilities, with special outreach to underserved groups as well as a performance space for world-class music artists. The facility also has 300-seat and 75-seat recital halls — but it’s the main music hall that’s the gem, both aesthetically and acoustically…  Read full story

Kevin Harris presents: Roots, Water, and Sunlight – A Contemporary Octet Expedition through the Expressions of James Baldwin… Before we get into the performance for June 18th, it has to be noted that the venue, Groton Hill Music Center, stands out among modern arts complexes in New England…  Read full story

Additional mention on The Common podcast… Listen

Midway through his crowd-pleasing 90-minute set at Groton Hill Music Center on Sunday night, Tony and Grammy-winning vocalist and actor Leslie Odom, Jr., one of the breakout stars of the musical Hamilton, stopped for a reflective moment. Having double-checked with the audience on the pronunciation of Groton (rhymes with gotten), Odom recalled how his star turn as Aaron Burr, which earned him a 2016 Tony for Best Performance by an actor in a musical, led to a rush of agents knocking on his door. “What do you want to do now?” they clamored. The world, they promised, was his oyster. With a pause and then a deadpan delivery, Odom said, “I want to play Groton!” The crowd went wild with laughter and applause. “I made it, baby!” Odom shouted… Read full story 

Groton Hill Music Center has thriving public school educational outreach programs in Fitchburg, Lowell, Lawrence, and Clinton as well as the Boys & Girls Club of Fitchburg and Leominster, providing free music education to underserved young people from diverse backgrounds. These programs provide free band, orchestral, string, percussion, and electronic music programs to students who might not otherwise have the chance to learn to play or experience music… Read full story (This article also appeared in The Lowell Sun on June 10)

The next season of the Vista Philharmonic Orchestra is one of old and new friends. The orchestra recently announced its 2023-2024 season, which will be its 49th season of orchestral performances, the 25th anniversary of conductor Bruce Hangen, and the second season in the new concert hall (and with a new name) at Groton Hill Music Center. Guest artists joining the 70-person orchestra playing both traditional and modern composers will include a bass-baritone, violinists, a string quartet and a pianist… Read full story (Lowell Sun subscribers)  | PDF version

Groton Hill Music Center and the Celebrity Series of Boston have announced a new partnership to bring world-class performers on the venerable Celebrity Series’ roster to the new music performance and education facility set in a former orchard near Groton center. The partnership marks the first time in its 85-year history that the Celebrity Series has expanded its performance venues beyond Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. It starts small, with four Celebrity Series’ classical performances slated for the 2023-2024 season in Groton Hill’s 300-seat Meadow Hall. The four-concert series is available by subscription only; single tickets will go on sale Tuesday, Aug. 22… Read full story 

Little could Lisa Fiorentino have known almost 15 years ago, when she was Director of Finance at what was then known as Indian Hill Music in Littleton, how fortuitous that decision would be. Now as CEO of Groton Hill Music Center, she has overseen the organization’s move to its new home in Groton and is the first to point out that this tremendous accomplishment was made possible by the efforts of so many others… Read full story 

Pristine sound engulfed the vast new concert hall at Groton Hill Music Center when the venue hosted its first audience in late January. Featuring evocative pieces by Strauss, Mozart, Tan Dun, and Respighi, the Vista Philharmonic Orchestra filled the hall with birdsong, ethereal strings and horns, and symphonic majesty. The performance also filled the hall with tears of joy… Read full story (Boston Globe subscribers)  |  PDF version

By the time maestro Bruce Hangen and the Vista Philharmonic Orchestra reached Respighi’s Pines of Rome, with its rousing four continuous movements, the sold-out crowd inside Groton Hill Music’s magnificent new 1000-seat concert hall, was ready to stand and cheer… Read full story 

Groton Hill Music Center’s 1,000-seat concert hall embraced its Saturday-opening-night audience in lofty, warm curvaceous wood. Possessing a large volume for its capacity, the eloquently detailed hall nevertheless felt intimate; it projected clear but enveloping sound and provided excellent sightlines… Read full story 

More than eight years after receiving a mammoth anonymous gift and five years after breaking ground, the magnificent Groton Hill Music Center, on Friday night, opened its doors and filled its 300-seat Meadow Hall with music for the first time… Read full story 

As smiling faces beamed around the new Groton Hill Music Center on Old Ayer Road, music rang throughout the building. While the facility has been open for private instruction since mid-September, the public at large got their first glimpse of the new center on Oct. 1-2 as part of Free Class Day… Read full story (Lowell Sun subscribers)

Turning in at 122 Old Ayer Road in Groton, one catches only a glimpse of the building on top of the hill. The long tarred driveway curves up and around and then opens into an expansive parking area. But one’s eye is immediately drawn to the impressive building that is Groton Hill Music Center, new home of Indian Hill Music, which opened to the region on Sept. 6… Read full story (HP subscribers)

Groton Hill Music Center, about eight years in the making, is the new incarnation of Indian Hill Music (founded in 1985 in nearby Littleton). The nonprofit organization is a professional performance venue and hub of community events and partnerships, as well as a regional music school that serves about 1,200 students of all ages. But Groton Hill also promises to be even more than that, through an expanding public mission. A robust year-round line-up of concerts across all music genres, in both Meadow Hall and in a second majestic hall that seats 1,000. Other events—lectures, seminars, and even future residential workshops—are being planned… Read full story

Once they experience the ambiance and the remarkable acoustics, Groton Hill Music Center will likely emerge as a regular tour stop for New England bound performers. Out among the farms and apple orchards of Groton, a bucolic upscale community situated 35 miles northwest of Boston, a musical dream is becoming a reality. Rising like the Land of Oz out of the surrounding woods and meadows is the brand-new Groton Hill Music Center, a stunning, world-class performance and educational facility that will undoubtedly change the musical landscape of the region… Read full story

When Rockport’s Shalin Liu Performance Center opened in 2010, it was lavished with honors for its innovative integration of the grand ocean backdrop. Now the principal architects behind that destination, Alan Joslin and Deborah Epstein, have envisioned another dramatic music venue on a former apple orchard here in Groton. Set to open in fall 2022, Groton Hill Music Center will be the new home of Indian Hill Music, a leading community music school founded 36 years ago as an offshoot of the Groton Center for the Arts… Read full story

Indian Hill Music, a music school and performance organization in Littleton, knew for years it could benefit from a larger space of its own. It took a generous donation from an anonymous donor to make it happen. Indian Hill — now renamed Groton Hill Music Center — is embarking on a construction project that will add a new destination music venue to the Massachusetts music scene, including a performance space with capacity for 1,000 people… Read full story

Indian Hill Music, a regional nonprofit center for music education and performance,
announced it will move its headquarters from Littleton to a brand new facility in Groton,
and will change its name to Groton Hill Music Center. The new facility will open in fall 2022, per the announcement dated on Sept. 24, and will include a 126,000-square-foot music venue with a 1,000-seat concert hall, a 300-seat
performance hall, and multi-scaled rehearsal and teaching spaces…. Read full story

Nestled away on the site of a former apple orchard on Old Ayer Road, Groton Hill Music Center is projected to open in fall 2022. When it opens, it will be far from the standard music venue. It will be a place to learn, engage, and make a deeper connection. “Our goal across the board is high quality music and wanting to have artists who can engage with our community,” CEO Lisa Fiorentino said during a tour of the stunning project… Read full story

Indian Hill Music, the Nashoba Valley region’s premier nonprofit center for music education and performance, will take the name Groton Hill Music Center with the fall 2022 opening of its stunning new home for music, currently under construction. Indian Hill Music has boldly undertaken one of the most ambitious cultural projects in New England, departing from Littleton to the North Central Massachusetts town where, in 1985, a handful of local musicians and music enthusiasts incorporated… Read full story