Author: Michael Witthaus

Chefs describe the surprising side of maple syrup

When you think of maple syrup, you are much more likely to think of pancakes or waffles than smoked fish, but Michael Williams would like the opportunity to change that.

“Maple-smoked fish is very, very good,” Williams said. “A maple-smoked sturgeon would be mind-blowing.”

Williams, who operates Eden’s Table Farm in Dunbarton, a farm and market dedicated to high-end, locally produced foods, with his wife, Pastry Chef Addie Leader-Zavos, believes that American eaters have always looked at maple products too narrowly, particularly in New England.

“New England has always been a step behind, culinarily speaking,” he said. “I think it stems from the Puritans’ distrust of any kind of pleasure.”

Northern New England leads the nation in maple syrup production — according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA.gov), New Hampshire produced 149,000 gallons of syrup last year. (An impressive achievement, considering what a rough production year it was, although it pales in comparison to Vermont’s 3.1 million gallons.) But, until relatively recently, the region has taken a conservative approach to how maple has been used in food and drink.

In recent years, however, chefs and brewers in New England, and especially New Hampshire, have become more adventurous in their uses of syrup and have found a demand for them.

Dennis Molnar is the co-owner of Concord Craft Brewing in Concord. He said that in recent years maple-forward beers have become a regular part of his brewery’s seasonal rotation. This year he and his team have focused on Maple Bourbon Brown Ale, as opposed to last year’s Logger Lager.

“We kind of alternate,” Molnar said. “We did something a little bit different this year, but we also used maple. We [made] our brown ale and we aged it in maple bourbon barrels and added a little bit of maple syrup at the tail end to get just a touch of sweetness back into it.”

Molnar said that, compared to some other ingredients, maple syrup is fairly easy to work with. “We need to have it uncontaminated because any bacteria or wild yeast will change the character of the beer,” he said. But a simple heat-up of the syrup, or buying material that’s already pasteurized is the fix. The bourbon barrels that the beer is aged in come from a producer in Maine, he said. “Maple was already used in the bourbon,” he said, “[but it] doesn’t tend to impart much flavor to the barrel; we end up getting sort of the char and the burnt-y flavor, but it doesn’t change the alcohol content. There’s not sort of an alcohol shiver at the end or anything. So we get mostly bourbon [notes] from that, and then we add back a little bit of maple to sort of restore some of that sweetness.”

Sweetness, of course, is one of the primary characteristics of maple syrup, but Chef Keith Sarasin, chef/owner of The Farmer’s Dinner pop-up restaurant (thefarmersdinner.com) and of Aatma Curry House in Milford, says it’s maple’s musky, perfumy notes that make it such a versatile ingredient to pair with other strong flavors.

Maple Gastrique Recipe by Keith Sarasin
Ingredients
½ cup maple syrup (preferably Grade B or dark amber for deeper flavor)
½ cup apple cider vinegar (or balsamic for a richer gastrique)
1 Tablespoon shallots, finely minced (optional, for added depth)
½ teaspoon black pepper (optional, for mild spice)
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon butter (optional, for a silky finish)

Instructions
Reduce the Vinegar:
In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the vinegar.
Let it simmer until reduced by about half (5-7 minutes), concentrating the acidity.

Add the Maple Syrup:
Stir in the maple syrup and bring the mixture to a gentle simmer.
Allow it to reduce for another 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it thickens slightly.
The consistency should be similar to a thin syrup—it will continue to thicken as it cools.

Season and Finish:
Stir in the salt and black pepper.
If using, whisk in the butter for a silkier texture.
Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.

Strain (optional):
If you used shallots, strain the gastrique through a fine-mesh sieve to achieve a smoother sauce.

“It’s funny,” Sarasin said. “At Curry House we use maple in two different dishes. We actually use it in our butter chicken, which is one of our secret ingredients. We use smoked maple syrup from Ben’s Sugar Shack. We add a little bit of that just as a quick touch, kind of our signature little special thing. Maple syrup works a lot like jaggery.” Jaggery, a raw sugar used in Indian cooking, has many similarities to maple syrup, he said.

“And since we study food from the subcontinent,” Sarasin continued, “we’ve learned that it’s a beautiful replacement for jaggery. Well, you know, jaggery’s got that little, that sourness to it, that kind of earthy quality.”

“That depends on where the jaggery comes from, too,” he said. “South Indian jaggery is a lot more like that. North Indian jaggery is floral, and so it reminded me of the different grades of maple syrup, like that dark amber kind of [syrup] mimics South Indian jaggery,” he said.

The theme of Sarasin’s pop-up restaurant The Farmer’s Dinner focuses on fine-dining applications of local and seasonal ingredients, so maple is prominent in many of his white-tablecloth dishes, he said.

“I think everyone thinks of maple syrup as this sweet dessert-based thing, but one of the things that we like to do is to use it in gastriques. A gastrique is basically a kind of a sauce or a glaze, with a soured, vinegar-like property. It’s like a reduction of a sauce. So I’ll do a maple gastrique with duck quite a bit because it works so darn well together. Anytime you have fat, you need to balance it with a high level of acidity.” And maple syrup helps round out that acidity, he said.

This is a use that Chef Chris Viauld of Greenleaf Restaurant in Milford puts maple to as well.

“I just did a maple-gochujang glazed duck breast for a dinner,” he wrote in an email. Gochujang is a traditional fermented salty chili paste from Korea. “And Emilee has a maple semifreddo on the current menu at Greenleaf and has done a maple creme brulee in menus past.”

Emilee is Viaud’s wife, Emilee Viaud, the pastry chef at his restaurants, and owner of Sweet Treats by Emilee (facebook.com/EmileesSweetTreats), a bespoke baking business. She said that maple syrup pairs well with the cream in a semifreddo. “It’s a frozen dessert,” she said. “It means semi-frozen. So really all it is is whipped cream and whipped cooked eggs and sugar. And then you can add really any flavoring to that, but I like adding maple because of the sweetness and how the richness of a dark maple complements that heavy cream.” She leans toward dark grades of maple syrup. “It’s got a more intense maple flavor. Yeah, and then really when you’re cooking with maple syrup, it is just so sweet. So you really want to try and find the balance, not make a dessert that ends up being overly sweet.”

Chef Viaud likes to pair maple with contrasting flavors. “One of the ingredients that I like to pair with maple is miso,” she said. Even though it’s a surprising combination, she said, “that’s actually probably my No. 1 thing I like to pair with maple. People always think of nuts, like a walnut or a pecan maple dessert, but with miso the fermentation and the saltiness really balances well with maple. If you just make a simple sugar cookie and want to put a maple glaze on it, you just add the miso. You can cook down miso to get it more flavorful — it’s very salty, where if you cook it down a little bit it actually gets more concentrated. You can add it to glazes. You can add it to fillings. It can go well in a caramel. You could also make a miso-maple ice cream.”

Miso Caramel by Emilee Viaud
“This is good to have on hand to add to ice cream or as a glaze to pies, cookies, and with coffee.”

Ingredients
1 cup pure NH maple syrup
2 Tablespoons room-temperature unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon miso paste (add more for more salty taste)
1/3 cup room-temperature heavy cream

Instructions
Bring maple syrup in a medium-sized pot over medium heat to a boil. Simmer maple syrup until candy thermometer reaches 230°F.
Turn heat down to low, add room-temp butter and whisk until incorporated.
Add heavy cream and whisk until combined.
Add miso and whisk in.
Pour caramel through a fine mesh strainer and let cool at room temperature

Pastry Chef Addie Leader-Zavos of Eden’s Table Farm agrees that maple syrup’s sweetness makes it an obvious choice to use in sweet applications. She likes to use it in European dishes, where it is nontraditional and adds an unexpected complexity.

“I like to base caneles around it,” she said. “They’re a French custardy pastry made with beeswax. They aren’t very common here, but there was a war fought over them.”

The two other applications Leader-Zavos uses maple syrup for are a little more traditional. One is her Maple Sticky Buns.

“We also sell a Maple Nut Pie,” she said. “It’s like a pecan pie, but with walnuts.” Again, the earthy notes of dark maple pair well with the slightly bitter flavor of the walnuts, and the velvety texture of the syrup contrasts with the crunchiness of the nuts. “During the holidays,” she said, “I bake it as a hand pie.”

Emily Sliviak is the Marketing Manager for Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple, one of the largest producers of maple syrup in New Hampshire. She said that while much of the maple syrup Ben’s sells is widely used in traditional ways she has seen it used more and more in recent years paired with savory dishes.

“We literally glaze all of our bacon, all of our sausage, all of that stuff with maple syrup,” Sliviak said. “So, as far as savory things go, salmon is great; we do an entree here with the maple glaze on it. And then we have rotisserie chickens here. We use a maple glaze and then we stuff the chicken with a bunch of fresh rosemary and it comes out really good. That’s one of my favorites.”

Maple’s affinity for smoke has become widely recognized in recent years by the grilling and barbecue communities. Steve Chase is the owner of Steve’s Original Sauces in Belmont. He said that while one of his sauces is spicy, with a maple background flavor, he wants to be very clear that he makes it with barbecuing in mind.

Crispy Maple Dijon Panko Crusted Salmon from Ben’s Sugar Shack
Serves 4.

4 salmon fillets, skin on
1 cup panko bread crumbs
¼ cup Ben’s Maple Sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon black pepper
⅓ cup butter, melted
⅓ cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons of Dijon or whole-grain mustard

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place salmon fillets on the prepared baking sheet, skin side down.
Combine the mayonnaise and mustard in a small bowl. Combine the breadcrumbs, maple sugar, salt, garlic powder, black pepper, and melted butter in another bowl.
Spread the mayo/Dijon mixture evenly on the tops of the salmon. Gently press the bread crumb mixture onto the top of the fillets, fully coating each one.
Bake in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes. The thickness of each fillet will determine cooking time, the crust should be golden brown and the salmon should flake easily with a fork.
Serve immediately with your favorite sides.

“I’ve been teaching people for years that I’m not a hot sauce guy,” he said emphatically. “Because people come and they say, oh, they look at the name, you know, ‘SOS,’ and they think it’s hot. So I kind of just, over the years, I said, ‘OK, let me come up with something for these folks.’ So I took my sugar shack maple sauce as my base. I took that into the kitchen and redid it a little bit to make it hot for them. It created a little smoky maple. And because it’s maple, I added a little bit of cinnamon to it as well to go with it. Cinnamon is a spice that has some heat to it as well. I just used a cayenne pepper powder as my heat in that, and it just developed into just a really beautiful, like little sweet maple with the cinnamon, and then the back end gives you that nice heat hit that people love to have, and it’s just turned into just a wonderful flavor sauce that people love.”

For Chase, maple is a natural pairing for smoky flavors, which makes it well-suited for barbecued meats.

“[My sauces] have a very subtle smoky maple flavor,” he said. “It’s not overly sweet; the maple just enhances what is in the bottle. Some people really love the smoke. If you’re not able to do any smoking, you can marinate your meat, your chicken, your pork, your beef — you can marinate it in this sugar shack maple and it will give it a nice smoky flavor.”

That sounds fine for a home cook, but what about professionals? Do competition barbecuers look at maple sauces as a cheap trick and avoid it, or is it something you might actually see at a high level of smoking?

Maple Glazed Ribs from Dan DeCourcey, owner of Up in Your Grill Food Truck (493-3191, upinyourgrill.com)

Maple Glaze
1 cup NH maple syrup
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon coarse salt
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
½ Teaspoon of finely ground black pepper
½ Teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or more for extra kick)

Mix glaze ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat stirring frequently. Turn down heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
Smoke ribs as you normally would. If you wrap the ribs during the smoking process add a half cup of glaze to the wrap as a braising liquid.
Glaze unwrapped ribs during the last 20 minutes of your cook. Enjoy!

Jayna Todisco is the head cook of the championship barbecue team A Mazie Q. She is a World Barbecue Championship competitor and the Grand Champion of the Back to BAYsics (Ironman) BBQ Competition. She said maple is her go-to special ingredient.

“In a competition environment,” Todisco said, ”maple to me lends itself with so many benefits over other sweeteners, so I use it in my injections. I use it in my sauces. I use it as a finishing sauce. It does really well. I just, I can’t sing its praises too much because to me it’s probably the one finishing glaze on most of my meats. We compete majorly, and … of my four meats three have it. I have a world champion recipe because I did win a world championship on that one alone. And when people are asking, like, ‘What is that? What makes it so well? And I’m like, ‘It really is maple syrup. It really is. Like, that’s what it is. That’s all it is.’ I just literally take a paintbrush and I paint it with maple syrup and that is it.”

Todisco said maple often takes judges by surprise.

“No one is expecting it,” she said. “And when you put it on hot meat, the way it mixes with the juices, you really can’t identify it because during the cooking process somehow it executes such a different flavor than when it starts. You can still tell it’s maple if you’re looking for it, but for the most part everybody’s like, ‘What is that?’ Because when you do barbecue, people are looking for honey or brown sugar or something like that, but no one’s expecting maple. I love it.”

Ultimately, Michael Williams of Eden’s Table Farm said, the growing use of maple in different cuisines and applications is a reflection of a sea change in the way the public thinks about its food. “Slowly,” he said, “we’re moving toward an awareness of eating locally and being more aware of where our ingredients come from. Maple definitely has a part in that.”

Maple Margarita by John Fladd
2 ounces jalapeño-infused blanco tequila – I like Tanteo
1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
½ ounce dark maple syrup

Pour the tequila, lime juice and maple syrup over ice in a cocktail shaker. Seal the shaker and shake it vigorously until you hear the ice start to break up.
If you were to ask your digital assistant to play “Tequila” by The Champs, who could blame you?
Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass, and drink while considering that while the world is a messy and suboptimal place in many ways, there are compensations.
Many bartenders will limit their use of maple syrup to a Maple Old-Fashioned, because its sweetness often overwhelms other ingredients. Tequila has enormous strength of personality, however, and is not easily overwhelmed. Maple goes exceptionally well with acidic fruits, and lime juice, as has been observed on many occasions, is everybody’s friend. This cocktail is juicy-tasting, with a residual jalapeño heat. It goes down very easily. It’s something of a constant in life that one margarita can easily become two, then a party. This margarita could usher in a relaxing weekend, or perhaps a lost one.

A look at Symphony NH as its music director prepares to pass the baton

Though it doesn’t take cues from the movie Conclave, the process of finding a successor to Roger Kalia, Music Director of Symphony NH, is similar in spirit.

“You’re really looking for someone who is the face of the organization,” search consultant Nick Adams said recently. “How they interact with a whole host of fairly disparate groups of people … you want to have a system that allows you to see that person in these different environments.”

Kalia announced his departure in early 2024. When the final notes of Aaron Copland’s American Symphony fade at his last concert on May 10 at Concord’s Capitol Center for the Arts, the maestro will have spent six years leading the state’s largest orchestra. By then, four or five potential new conductors will be finalized.

What happens next is an interesting twist on filling an outgoing leadership role. Each candidate will have an opportunity to perform for the classical music community over the course of the 2025-26 concert season. At the end, one will become Symphony NH Music Director.

Adams, who served as Operations Manager at Symphony NH from 2007 to 2014 and now heads the Boston-based Cantata Singers along with his search efforts, believes the season-long audition is the best way for a community to choose a potential conductor. They’ve considered 10 candidates thus far.

“What we were looking for is are they able to take an art form that’s hundreds of years old and program it in a way that … speaks to people who already know the language of classical music and orchestras, but also package it and involve composers and other music in a way that might bring new 21st-century audiences in.”

Symphony NH Executive Director Deanna Hoying values this long hello as a way to see how potential Music Directors will bond with the orchestra. To that end, the search committee will attend rehearsals to evaluate chemistry between them and the candidate.

“You want to know how these folks work with the musicians,” she said by phone in late February. “Are they efficient in how they use the time that they have? How do they work with our librarian? Watching how they work, how they treat people in that environment is really important, because our musicians are our most valuable asset. Many of them have been with us for decades.”

The selection process that culminated in 2019 was the result of a national search for a Music Director. Kalia lives in Evansville, Indiana, where he leads that city’s orchestra, and traveled to Nashua for his work there. The current effort is focused on finding a candidate based in the region.

“Working with a Music Director who doesn’t live here; I think one of the things they realized is the value of having them be a little bit closer is, one, you just get to see them more, and that helps a lot,” Hoying said. “People have connections to these artists.”

They began with an element of uncertainty, wondering if they could attract enough candidates, and they built safeguards into the process in case they needed to expand at some point.

“We felt like, ‘let’s start with what we actually want, which is somebody within a two-hour drive of New Hampshire,” Hoying said, adding the net would widen “if we felt that we didn’t have enough in the pool.”

Fortunately, she continued, “We had so much wealth of talent that we didn’t need to do that. What blew us all away was that we had so many incredibly talented people who are local … because you don’t know until you throw the net out what you’re going to get.”

Kalia and Hoying came to Symphony NH in the same year. After moving to Manchester from Louisville, where she worked with their orchestra, Hoying reached out to then director Mark Thayer to offer her services. She started as a grant writer in the spring. Kalia began his tenure that fall.

When the pandemic arrived, the organization turned from celebrating a new leader to wondering how it could survive.

“Roger started and didn’t even get through his first season, dear guy,” Hoying said. “In spring, it’s like, ‘Guess what? We’re going to have to pivot.’ He and I talked about pivoting a lot and we did it a lot as more information became available. We got through Covid; we did the livestream shows.”

Emerging from months of virtual programming, there were still plenty of restrictions to address.

“Everything was changing, sometimes very rapidly, and we were always having to respond,” Hoying recalled. “What’s everybody feeling now; how is this going to work? We knew there might be a percentage of our pre-Covid audience who may never come back.”

During that time, Thayer left to work for the symphony in Elgin, Illinois. He recommended Hoying, whose role had expanded into development, as his replacement. She accepted, but asked to begin as Interim Executive Director. “I wanted the board to feel like they had some agency, and to make sure they were comfortable with me,” she said. “And that I, in all honesty, was comfortable doing the job. I mean, this is a big job.”

The upcoming 2022-2023 season marking Symphony NH’s centennial year was an immediate challenge as she moved into her permanent position. “Covid really upended planning, but we were able to put together a season that really celebrated, as we called it, looking back.”

This included longtime partner organization the Nashua Choral Society performing Mozart’s Requiem with the local Nashoba Valley Chorale.“We looked to our past for inspiration,” she recalled. “We celebrated the hundredth at the brand-new Nashua Center for the Arts, which was lovely. We were one of the first shows; I think they had been open all of three weeks.”

That connection with Nashua’s newest venue became more critical with the closing of Keefe Auditorium, the site for many concerts in the past. In an interview last fall, Roger Kalia spoke of the challenges presented by losing the Keefe and its larger stage, while at the same time praising the Nashua Center.

“We had a dedicated audience at the Keefe, and that is a little bit challenging in the sense that we’re going to miss that,” he said. The new venue, Kalia added, “is acoustically really good, and close to the audience, in the sense that the seats are very close to the stage. It’s intimate music-making, and I really enjoy that.”

He went on to say that while the Keefe was the state’s largest auditorium, its 1,400 seats were sometimes hard to fill. “The Nashua Center has 700, and every seat is essentially filled. As a musician, you enjoy that, when you see a full audience sitting there.”

The relationship will continue when the Symphony NH Brass Ensemble is among the performers gathering to celebrate the center’s second anniversary on Tuesday, April 1. The Nashua Community Music School String Ensemble, Ukestra, Ruby Shabazz, Y Dance in Motion, Peacock Players and Actorsingers will also appear.

A statewide entity — the name was changed from Nashua Symphony Orchestra in 2012 — Symphony NH has expanded its reach in recent years, with multiple concerts in Concord, Derry and Manchester, in addition to Nashua’s St. Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church, where the annual Holiday Brass concert was held last December.

All parties in the search expressed that finding a Music Director who lives in the community comes with an underlying priority: selecting a candidate who will also be of the community. Nick Adams recalled a search committee member telling him that one of their evaluation metrics is, “Would I like to have a bagel and coffee with this person at the corner cafe? They’ll tell me about their musical selections and what inspires them. It’s an excellent way to think about it.”

Hoying concurred, saying, “there are definitely a lot of elements to this job, and Music Director is equal parts being on stage and working with the musicians and then really having that presence in the community … when they go into a local coffee shop, people know who they are.”

Part of classical music’s enduring nature comes from centuries of maestros reinterpreting important works, she continued, citing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as an example. “Everybody brings their own take to it, so I think that’s where you want to kind of generate that interest and this level of approachability. You’ve got to be able to connect with your audiences. Otherwise … that’s where I think you miss the mark.”

Further, she continued, “What I look for in a candidate is someone that’s got a very clear vision of what an orchestra can be in the 21^st century, knowing that we do still have a lot of challenges. We are still competing with inflation and content on streaming services and all those things that keep people from coming out. What is the vision of the orchestra in the future, and how do we welcome everyone to our family, to our concerts?”

The committee hopes to choose finalists soon.

“Our current field of semifinalists is 10 people,” Adams said. “I tell Deanna all the time, ‘Your next music director is in this pool.’ The number of applicants that we had that are just really talented and are interested in this position is — it’s a very deep pool. I think a host of them will be really exciting for the community to see. What is most encouraging to me is I think the future is really bright.”

It’s a rich and varied list, he continued. “There’s certainly some that bring different kinds of strengths to the table, but each of them has been really able to present a compelling picture of what their music directorship would look like. So I think at this point we’re really looking at whatever the perfect fit is for the southern New Hampshire community…. There’s a lot of reasons to be excited.”

Next up for Maestro Kalia
What: “Serenade for Winds,” a unique concert that focuses on the orchestra’s wind section.
When: Saturday, March 8, 7:30 p.m., Nashua Community College (505 Amherst St., Nashua)
Tickets: $10-$40 at symphonynh.org

Kalia described the program:
“Although less common in concert halls than full symphonic orchestras with winds, today’s concert wind ensemble has a lengthy history, rooting itself in the European tradition of Harmoniemusik. Emerging in the late 18th century, Harmoniemusik was a form of chamber music written specifically for wind instruments. These ensembles, typically composed of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons — the common instrumentation of the wind section for court and theater orchestras — were initially associated with the courts of European aristocracy. They provided lively outdoor entertainment or underscored formal banquets, serving as a sonic emblem of both elegance and status. Composers like Mozart and Haydn were among the first to elevate the genre, recognizing its potential beyond mere functional music.

“The growing prominence of the wind ensemble coincided with a broader interest in exploring the unique tonal palette of wind instruments. While strings dominated the symphonic repertoire, winds offered a range of colors — from the playful chirping of flutes and clarinets to the noble warmth of horns. By the early 19th century, advancements in instrument design allowed for greater technical and dynamic capabilities, inspiring composers to craft more ambitious works for winds. The wind ensemble transformed from a courtly entertainment medium to a standalone artistic force, paving the way for masterpieces such as those featured in this program.

“I would also mention that Mendelssohn was only 15 years old when he wrote his Overture for Winds. A very impressive achievement!”

Indiana wants him

Maestro Kalia talks about his final Symphony NH concerts

Roger Kalia’s tenure as Symphony NH’s Music Director draws to a close with three more concerts, the final in May. In a phone interview on Feb. 24 he talked about his final three concerts and shared memories about his time leading the orchestra, once again intimating that classical music fans may see him again.

Though he’s not participating in the search for his successor, Kalia offered his thoughts on becoming the Music Director at Symphony NH through a similar process.

For my year, they had, I think, eight or nine candidates. So it was a little bit bigger. I think it was over a year and a half rather than just one season. All the finalists conducted a concert, and then during the week we’d meet with search committee members and all sorts of community members. It’s an intense process.

“Serenade of the Winds”happens Saturday, March 8, at Nashua Community College.

There are three incredible works in this concert that really are probably the most famous pieces from the wind repertoire, I would say. When Mozart was writing these pieces, he was really kind of opening up a … I don’t want to say new genre, but a new way of writing for chamber music, and the focus was on wind instruments. The Mozart is one of the most famous works; it’s called the Gran Partita. It’s full of elegance, charm. It has a stunning slow movement, which is an adagio. It’s a seven-movement work, and we’re doing the first three movements and the finale…. We’re also doing the Dvorak Serenade for Winds, which is a joyful work that’s infused with a lot of Czech folk music, which is where he was from [and] it features, once again, all of the wind instruments of the orchestra, and really highlights the principal winds…. We’re opening the concert with a work by Felix Mendelssohn called the Overture for Winds, a very youthful, energetic piece, that really highlights his gift of melody and drama….

I feel that it’s important to highlight our wind musicians because they’re incredibly talented and it gives them more of a soloistic feature…. A lot of orchestras, I think, don’t program these works often just because … the strings aren’t playing. I think Symphony NH is unique in that, I feel especially during my tenure, we’ve done a lot with chamber works, and I call them that because they’re smaller works, it’s not a full orchestra. We did it during Covid especially.

With music from West Side Story and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, “It’s All Overtures” on Saturday, April 19, will appeal to even casual fans of classical music.

They’re all shorter pieces, let’s say 5 to 10 minutes. We’re doing nine or 10 overtures on this program, all pretty popular ones. I mean, talk about accessible and familiar pieces. You think about Rossini, the William Tell Overture, the one made famous by the Lone Ranger, something I think everyone would know. West Side Story with Bernstein … Maestro was an Oscar-nominated movie with Bradley Cooper. Because of that, Bernstein’s music has … been in the spotlight a little bit more. I think a lot of people know the Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart. It’s light, it sparkles, it’s fast, virtuosic.

The concert will also feature a piece by Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s older sister — a rarity, a 19th-century female composer.

It’s a great work, eight to nine minutes, and it sounds a lot like early Beethoven. It’s so melodic and rich. So I’m excited to feature that work. It deserves to be heard and celebrated. She faced a lot of barriers, [but] this overture now is getting played everywhere, the Overture in C. I think it’s a hidden gem, and it’s a fun one. The orchestra is featured, especially the woodwinds. There’s some beautiful clarinet solos and oboe flute solos.

For the all-American “Rhapsody in Blue” concert on May 10, Kalia bids adieu to Symphony NH with a program featuring pianist Fei Fei.

I’ve always loved conducting the music of American composers like Gershwin and Copland. Appalachian Spring has always been one of my favorite works, but rather than do that, I wanted to do a grand, majestic work like the Symphony No. 3…. It captures the spirit of America, the optimism of our country. It culminates in the triumphant Fanfare for the Common Man. I’m a former trumpet player and this is one of the great brass works in the repertoire…. Fei Fei, I want to say this will be our fourth time collaborating on Rhapsody in Blue…. She performs it with a unique twist … she really brings out the jazz elements, and she is so exciting to watch.

On becoming Musical Director of the Terre Haute Symphony on July 1.

I’m looking forward to working with their [outgoing] music director next month on … a decades-of-pop concert [featuring acts like] Frank Sinatra; Earth, Wind & Fire; Metallica; Led Zeppelin. It’s going to be a fun show with a singer [and] not to get off track here, I grew up a huge metal fan, and I was a big Metallica fan when I was in high school, and I love conducting rock shows with an orchestra, it’s so much fun. Audiences just go crazy. It’s not your typical classical audience where they’re just sitting there. They’re up, moving around, dancing, it’s great to see. Terre Haute, as with Symphony NH, they’re open to innovative programming. So I’m looking forward to all of these different innovative programs that we’re going to be putting on, the variety of music.

Though he’s leaving, it’s not goodbye forever.

I’m still going to be in touch with everyone from Symphony NH. Even though it’s a job, I’ve made a lot of personal friendships…. Deanna, who’s been my partner the last four years since she took the job as Executive Director, she’s been great to me. We see eye to eye on programming, and she’s all about … expanding the repertoire and making it more inclusive, and being about the community and reaching new audiences. I hope to continue that in a community like Terre Haute. I know they’re open to it. They’re open to innovation and making the orchestra accessible and community engagement is the key. I think that’s going to be a big part of my tenure there.

Finally, a favorite memory.

One of my most proud moments with the orchestra was the New Hampshire Concerto that we did last year, where we collaborated with four student composers from four different universities in New Hampshire, and they created a multi-movement work that was about New Hampshire, about the topography, the geography, the history, whatever it had to do with New Hampshire. It was really special to give those kids an opportunity to work with a professional orchestra, and I’m actually hoping to bring that model to my other orchestras now because I think it was so successful. Because it celebrated not only new music, but connected with the local community, the state of New Hampshire. Which is what this is all about, community engagement. It was also an opportunity to showcase our focus on music education, giving student musicians opportunities.

Symphony NH upcoming concerts

Serenade of the Winds
Saturday, March 8, 7:30 p.m. at Nashua Community College, Judd Gregg Hall Auditorium, 505 Amherst St., Nashua
A concert dedicated to the orchestra’s wind instruments, the program includes Mendelssohn’s Overture for Winds, Op. 24 in C Major (1824), select movements from Gran Partita, Mozart’s Serenade No.10 in B-flat Major, K.361, (1781) and Dvořák’s Serenade, Op.44, B.77, D minor (1878)

Hollywood Hits
Saturday, March 29, 7:30 p.m. at Stockbridge Theatre, 22-98 Bypass 28, Derry
Sunday, March 30, 3 p.m. at Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Blockbuster movie themes from Gone with the Wind, The Magnificent Seven, Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, James Bond, Rocky, The Pink Panther, Moon River, Dances with Wolves, Ben Hur and more.

It’s All Overtures
Saturday, April 19, 7:30 p.m. at Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua
Well-known overtures, from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.

Rhapsody in Blue
Saturday, May 10, 7:30 p.m. at Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 South Main St., Concord,
Maestro Kalia leads his last concert, with guest pianist Fei-Fei. It’s an all-American affair with works of Aaron Copland, Florence Price and George Gershwin. The program includes Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement (1934) and Copland’s Symphony No. 3 (1944-46)

Illuminated Ensembles – Chamber Favorites
Sunday, May 18, 4 p.m. at Bank of New Hampshire Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
The final concert in the Illuminated Ensembles series, with the Symphony NH Woodwind Quintet performing an evening of classical chamber music.