The Lake Lure Music Festival performance on Oct. 7 was a resounding success. Organizer Christopher Dolman sent these thoughts to the Breeze.
“It was a beautiful night of music with Wendy Sutter (cello) and Chee-Yun (violin) extraordinary in their interpretation and playing of various movements from selections by Zoltan Kodaly, Phillip Glass, Sebastian Bach and Handel-Halvorsen. The Gardens had wonderful acoustics and the audience was spellbound by the virtuosity of these two renowned performers. The artists played duets together and also solo pieces to rousing ovations throughout, culminating in a long standing ovation that seemed to not want to end.
In between selections Chee-Yun and Ms. Sutter provided rare insight not only to the composers and their inspirations for writing the music, but also offered the audience suggestions on what to listen for in the pieces while experiencing it in this intimate setting. They shared wonderful anecdotes along with personal connections to the music. Chee-Yun spoke of how the two instruments “speak” to each other in sections of the music and have “a conversation, with intention”, as each instrument seeks to be heard or respond to the other. She also spoke of the Bach Chaconne “beinglike the “Everest” for violinists for it’s difficulty”. Ms. Sutter spoke about how Mr. Glass composed Songs & Poems specifically for her, their unique way of collaborating in New York City, how she premiered it all over the world and how her recording became the highest selling classical album of the year. They were both warm and charming.
After the concert the musicians spoke with attendees on The Gardens’ Porch as a fire pit warmed folks sitting around it on this crisp Fall night. RBLL provided wonderful food and along with the Festival, provided all guests with free drinks.
In addition to the music, the LLMF was able to make significant contributions to both the Lake Lure Classical Acadmey and the Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach on Saturday night. I recently learned that LLMF’s $5000 summer donation to LLCA after the Appalachian Road Show bluegrass concert, had been used by LLCA Director Barbara Cohen to help fund a middle school music teach at the school for 2023. I felt this was a wonderful use of the donation, and to that end we donated another $5000 to LLCA on Saturday night to help the school bring in the middle music teacher more often this year. LLMF has donated $10,000 to LLCA in 2023.
Everyone knows that kids can’t learn if they are hungry, and in order to help in our own small way, we donated $5000 to Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach, presenting it to HNGO President and Office Manager, Karen King, who was in attendance to help kids with food insecurity. It is our hope to continue our support of these two important institutions.”
