Concerts in the Barn Brings Free World-Class Chamber Music to Quilcene
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The ideal places to hear chamber music. Photo courtesy of Concerts in the Barn [/caption]
Arts News by Nhatt Nichols
For the past eight years, everyone from die-hard classic music fans to the chamber music curious has voyaged to Quilcene to hear internationally famous musicians perform for free at Concerts in the Barn.
Volunteer director Leigh Hearon has been one of the driving forces behind keeping the music going. “For many years, we had a festival called the Olympic Music Festival on the farm, and it was a standard concert venue. We charged money for tickets, and that's just how it ran,” Hearon said. Then her husband decided to retire in 2015, and they put on a few concerts for free, which turned out to be very popular.
When Hearon took over running the farm, she decided to make the whole festival free for everyone, ensuring that families with young children and other people who wouldn’t normally be exposed to this caliber of performance could attend.
“My husband was a viola player and a member of the Philadelphia String Quartet; music was his life. He originally purchased the farm specifically to be able to put on chamber music,” Hearon said. She sold the farm in 2023 to the Koch family, who have since turned it into the year-round venue the Quilcene Lantern. One of the stipulations of the sale was that Concerts in the Barn could continue.
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Soprano Laura Bohn, who will be performing Saturday and Sunday. Photo courtesy of Concerts in the Barn [/caption]
“It's a perfect environment to listen to what some people would refer to as highbrow music,” Hearon said. “The musicians don't dress up, and you don't have to dress up to go to a concert. If you've got kids, they can run around the farm.”
This year, concerts will be held on Friday afternoons in addition to their normal weekend programming.
Friday, July 18, pianists George Lopez and Gulimina Mahamuti—known as Duo Monde G&G—will dazzle the audience with a program of two-hand piano they’re calling “Sounds of Latin America.”
On Saturday and Sunday, July 19 and 20, Duo Monde G&G will be joined by five string players and soprano Laura Bohn, who has travelled from Amsterdam, for a spectacular concert that includes Gabriel Fauré, Kurt Weill in Schubert's “The Trout Quintet.”
Concerts in the Barn will hold one more concert this summer on Friday, August 8th, featuring acclaimed Russian pianist Eleonora Karpukhova. This is a gala fundraiser held in the Milking Shed, and the only concert that charges a ticket fee. The goal of the gala is to secure funding for the 2026 season. Karpukhova will perform works from Bach to Beethoven and Ravel to Rachmaninov.
Although all the July concerts are free to the public, patrons are asked to reserve seating for each performance here. All concerts begin at 2:00 pm, though attendees are welcome to come at noon to picnic and stroll through the farm. Patrons have the option of sitting inside on comfortable chairs, in the loft, or listening outside on the lawn.
