Mountains & Music Committee | A Typical Weekend | Our History
The First Mountains & Music Weekends
These weekends, featuring 80 to 100 musicians and listeners, began almost 50 years ago, the brainchild of AMC member Arnold Reif, an amateur pianist and then chair of the AMC Boston Chapter Ski Committee. Inspired by a combination skiing and music workshop held at Christmas time in Norway since 1959, Reif imagined that a group of like-minded people might be found in the Boston area.
At the time, the Ski Committee sponsored an annual Cross Country Carnival in conjunction with the Downhill Tuckerman Ravine Workshop, and, at Reif’s suggestion, a Music and Skiing Workshop was substituted for the Carnival. He enlisted the help of Leonard Berman, an amateur flute player, and together they came up with plans for the first Music and Mountains Weekend, which was held March 6-7, 1976, at the AMC’s Pinkham Notch Camp. The cost for the weekend was $26 with a $1 discount for AMC members. It was a big success, and the Mountains and Music Committee was born.
The committee has amassed a formidable collection of both chamber and choral music, the whole of which is available to all during the weekend. Participants range from relative beginners to accomplished amateur players. Being able to read music is the only prerequisite.
For many years, Mountains and Music weekends took place twice a year, alternating between Joe Dodge Lodge in Pinkham Notch and Nature’s Classroom at Sargent Center in Hancock, NH. Shortly after February 2020, in-person music-making was put on hold due to the Covid-19 outbreak.