HEBRON — An evening of world-class chamber music featuring three international premier instrumentalists will be presented free of charge to the public at Hebron Academy. It is thanks to the generosity of a former student who wants to introduce young people to classical music.

The Feb. 10 performance begins at 7:30 p.m. at Hebron Academy’s Lepage Center for the Arts (Androscoggin Theater) at 309 Paris Road in Hebron. Featured will be cellist Jan Muller-Szeraws, violinist Teresa Ling and internationally-renowned pianist Ya-Fei Chuang.

It is one of three annual free performances Hebron Academy has presented to the public for more than 10 years through the generosity of 1951 Hebron Academy graduate Saul B. Cohen and his wife, Naomi, who established the Saul B. and Naomi R. Cohen Foundation.

“Music and young people are grand experiences,” said Cohen, a former Hebron Academy trustee and president of Hammond Residential Real Estate in Massachusetts.

In an interview with the Sun Journal, Cohen said his reasons for supporting the venture came from several sources, including his sense of  “grateful obligation” to the academy. The academy, he said, gave him the “nurturing support, guidance, and intellectual and academic training” that led him to Harvard College and Harvard Business School where he earned degrees in business administration the 1950s.

Cohen also said he believes it is important “to expose young people to the grandeur of classical music.

“The environment is full of popular music, indeed, it is unavoidable. Serious classical music is a wonderful world to which I want to introduce young people,” he said.

Additionally, Cohen said the concert series allows him to indulge in his efforts to support early stage, but fully professional musicians, to advance their careers not only through the Hebron Academy concert series but in 20 other concerts he sponsors in the Boston area.

“I strongly believe that talented music artists deserve performance opportunities and that it is right to enrich the cultural life of the communities in which we live and do business,” Cohen said.

As a child, music lessons instilled in him a love of music. He said he eventually “retired” from the “active pursuit of an instrument” as an adult, but now in his 70s, and inspired by young musicians, he has resumed his study. He plays the cello.

“He is passionate about chamber music as a personal interest,” said Liza Tarr, communications coordinator for Hebron Academy.

The Feb. 10 performance features violinist Teresa Ling, co-artistic director of Garth Newel Music Center in Hot Springs, Va., and violinist of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet. The award-winning musician has served on the faculties of numerous conservatories and universities across the country and abroad and performed worldwide. She has a bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and a master’s degree in violin performance from the Eastman School of Music.

Cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws has been a soloist, chamber musician and teacher on three continents during his career. Recent performances have been with the New England Philharmonic and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. He is on faculty at the Phillips Academy Andover in Andover, Mass., and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

Pianist Ya-Fei Chuang has appeared at numerous international festivals. The award-winning recording musician has played and recorded with many orchestras and ensembles, including in Hong Kong, Austria, South America and throughout the United States. She gives master classes throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, including at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, at Tanglewood, at summer festivals of Interharmony in Italy, Walnut Hill School, and annually at the International Summer Academy of the Mozarteum, Salzburg.

Tarr said Hebron Academy offers numerous opportunities for Upper School student musicians to perform during the academic year, including playing or singing performances for special occasions such as school receptions or formal dinners on-campus, in the pit orchestra for the annual musical, in one of the academy’s ensembles and the school’s a cappella group, the Hebeegeebees.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Concert program

HEBRON — The Hebron Academy concert will feature Ya-Fei Chuang on the piano, Teresa Ling on the violin and Jan Müller-Szeraws on the cello in the following musical program:

Earl Wilde/Gershwin:

Four Etudes based on songs by George Gershwin for solo piano

No. 2 “Somebody Loves Me”‘

No. 3 “The Man I Love”

No. 4 “Embraceable You”

No. 1 “Liza”

Zoltán Kodály:

Duo for violin and violoncello op. 7

I. Allegro serioso, non troppo

II. Adagio

III. Maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento – Presto

Antonín Dvorák:

“Dumky” Piano Trio op. 90

Dumka 1. Lento maestoso/ Allegro quasi doppio movimiento/ Tempo I/ Allegro

Dumka 2. Poco Adagio/ Vivace non troppo/ Poco Adagio/ Vivace

Dumka 3. Andante/ Vivace non troppo/ Andante

Dumka 4. Andante moderato/ Allegro scherzando/ Moderato

Dumka 5. Allegro

Dumka 6. Lento maestoso/ Vivace/ Lento/ Vivace