Hill and Hollow Music celebrates 30 years, names new executive director

After 30 years leading Hill and Hollow Music, Angela Brown is handing the reins to Tom McNichols, marking a new chapter for the North Country’s premier chamber music series.

“It was a bit of a cultural wasteland,” Brown said of the North Country in the 1990s. A professional musician, Brown found moving to the Adirondacks a “big shift” from her life performing around the globe, but she soon discovered a new passion that would keep her amply occupied for the next three decades.

“We decided to enrich the musical life here,” she said. “We decided to start a little series…We started bringing in people we knew to play concerts. It started very small… From the get-go, we had people who were curious and came to concerts.”

What began as a series spotlighting classical chamber music has evolved to include a range of concerts and events, with focuses on jazz, world music, folk, fusion and more. However, a change is in the air, with Brown turning over the reins to the newly announced executive director, Tom McNichols.

A shared musical journey

Brown and McNichols’ lives have followed strikingly similar paths. Both worked in New York City as professional vocalists, and both toured internationally. Brown taught at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. McNichols, a Plattsburgh native, attended the university. McNichols was part of a men’s vocal ensemble, Cantus, which performed and led workshops in Plattsburgh in the mid-2000s, thanks to a collaboration between Hill and Hollow Music and SUNY Plattsburgh.

Now, Brown, 72, has decided that the nearly full-time volunteer role of overseeing Hill and Hollow is one best turned over to a successor—and McNichols seemed a perfect fit.

“First of all, [McNichols] is really smart. He’s of our community. He was born and raised here. He knows probably more people than I do and I thought I knew everyone,” Brown laughed. “He’s very competent. He has a music background.”

McNichols also previously served as president of the board at The Strand Center for the Arts for the last five years. This experience, plus his experience with Cantus, he said, has well-equipped him for his new position with Hill and Hollow.

“I already have a pretty good handle on what it takes to put on a show, from soup to nuts—the business end of it, the logistics, the green room,” McNichols said. “It’s everything from contracts to the curation of the art to signing the check afterward and providing food in the green room and taking [musicians] out to dinner after the show… It looks like, six times a year, throwing a party…and hoping an audience pays to come see it.”

McNichols, who moved back to the North Country during the COVID-19 pandemic, also works as a senior project manager, putting together custom homes in the Adirondacks. So what inspired him to take on such a demanding new responsibility?

“It’s the only thing of its kind in the region,” he said. “Hill and Hollow has become recognized in the chamber music world, worldwide, as a sought presenter…Typically speaking, a chamber music series like this would only really exist in a much more populous area. The fact that it can happen in the Adirondacks—I thought it was a worthwhile endeavor to keep that going for everyone’s sakes, for the local community as well as the artist community.”

Slavic Soul Party: Upcoming show with Hill and Hollow

Sunday, Oct. 12 at 3 p.m

Slavic Soul Party!

A Balkan soul gypsy funk brass band.

Tickets can be purchased through the Strand Center for the Arts. 

He explained, “I already have a pretty good handle on what it takes to put on a show, from soup to nuts—the business end of it, the logistics, the green room — so none of it is necessarily new. It’s just applying it to this format, in these conditions. It’s everything from contracts to the curation of the art to signing the check afterward and providing food in the green room and taking [musicians] out to dinner after the show… It looks like, six times a year, throwing a party…and hoping an audience pays to come see it.” 

McNichols, who moved back to the North Country during the Covid-19 pandemic, also works as a senior project manager, putting together custom homes in the Adirondacks. So what inspired him to take on such a demanding new responsibility?

“It’s the only thing of its kind in the region,” he said. “Hill and Hollow has become recognized in the chamber music world, worldwide, as a sought presenter…Typically speaking, a chamber music series like this would only really exist in a much more populous area. The fact that it can happen in the Adirondacks—I thought it was a worthwhile endeavor to keep that going for everyone’s sakes, for the local community as well as the artist community.” 

Building on three decades of success

Brown credits this commitment to high-quality performances for Hill and Hollow’s longevity, alongside the organization’s dedicated and loyal core followers.

“They feel that they can come to a Hill and Hollow concert and they’re going to have a good experience,” she said. “The way we present concerts is very intimate. I think people like that. They get to talk to the artists. There’s a lot of interaction and education that goes with it… People see their friends there. They tend to see the same people.”

Looking to the future, McNichols hopes to continue and expand Hill and Hollow’s lineup of events at The Strand, noting that the venue is more appropriate for more produced, theatrical experiences, while Hill and Hollow’s other venues, such as the Saranac Methodist Church, may be more suited to more intimate concerts.

He also wants to emphasize the family-friendly nature of Hill and Hollow events, saying, “Anyone who has kids who are of the age that they’re starting to play an instrument or starting to play in the band at school…should definitely consider bringing [them]. It will be an absolutely world-class experience…You’d be surprised with some of the kids who come and sit intently for 90 minutes, listening to a string quartet, and are genuinely enthralled…”

Brown says she’ll support McNichols “as much as he wants to be helped.”

“I want him to put his own stamp on it, develop his own style and relationships. I want to step out of the way and he’s stepping right up,” she said.