Sigma Alpha Iota

SAI-NATIONAL.ORG SUMMER 2015 PAN PIPES 3 OUR NORTH CAROLINA HOME attend the Music Center to study with members of a distinguished artist faculty and with renowned guest artists. For seven weeks, students participate in a vigorous program of instruction that includes ensembles, private lessons, and chamber music. e BMC campus encompasses more than 145 buildings spread over 140 beautiful mountainside acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Brevard's hallmark is the powerful sense of community that re-emerges every June, as faculty and students work together to present more than 80 concerts to the public. e total audience each summer numbers more than 30,000. For decades the Brevard Music Center has inspired devotion not only among its students and faculty but also among its listeners and among a vast corps of volunteers. at hundreds of persons have purchased homes in western North Carolina expressly to be near the Brevard Music Center gives some measure of the Center's significance to its community. Recent master teachers have included hornist Allen Spanjer and oboist Joseph Robinson of the New York Philharmonic, the Ying Quartet, violinist Andres Cardenes, conductor/composer Gunther Schuller, the Diaz Trio, pianist Martin Katz, conductors SAI Friend of the Arts Frederick Fennell, and SAI National Arts Associate Keith Lockhart, and members of the chamber ensemble Innuendo. In 1977, the Brevard Music Center honored and gave recognition to women in music and dedicated the Souvenir Program Book to them. Included were SAI Honorary Members Sarah Caldwell, conductor and opera producer, and Julia Smith, composer; Jean Eichelberger lvey, composer; Karen Phillips, violist; with Honorary Members Sylvia Rabinoff on the artist faculty of the center and Mignon Dunn, guest soloist. Cynthia Ragland was recipient of the Regional Scholarship to the Center. At the 1971 Convention, the building of a Practice Cabin at the Brevard Music Center, North Carolina was announced. In 2004, the SAI Philanthropies Board allocated funds received through the SAI Century Drive and renovated the center's SAI practice cabin. e practice room featured new siding, air conditioning, carpet, and piano. Attending students could easily spend hours in the cabin, practicing for Music Center productions performed throughout the summer. Philanthropies also provides a scholarship to the center each year. During a 2005 visit to the music center, members of the Philanthropies Board were met by BMC Admissions Coordinator and Registrar Dorothy Knowles, herself an initiate of SAI's Gamma Omicron Chapter. Knowles explained the admissions process to the board and revealed that her grandfather James Christian Pfohl founded the Brevard facility in 1945. She then related her deeper connection to SAI: Her grandfather's wedding registry included a signature by SAI co-founder Mary Storrs Andersen. Asheville Lyric Opera is a professional, non- profit Opera Company. Because of its location, the company provides Western North Carolina with a magnitude of theatrical experiences at a central location, the Diana Wortham eatre, in the heart of downtown Asheville. David Craig Starkey, Founder, Artistic and General Director, spent three summers (1994- 1996) as a leading baritone at the Brevard Music Festival before debuting with Amato Opera (NY) in 1996, and with the New York City Opera in 1997. While his summers were spent in Brevard, the rest of these three years were typically spent in New York City, making the difficult transition from graduate school to a professional singing career. "I was immersed in the singing world and was on the road eight to ten months out of the year. But in order to make it as a performer, I still needed to make money in other ways. With experience gained in theater and music production during graduate school, I was able to successfully get into performing arts production in the Northeast. I did work with the Yale University Opera, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Connecticut, and New York City Opera. I met a lot of amazing people, had a lot of support, and doors opened for me." It was when Mr. Starkey met Paul Kellogg of the New York City Opera that the idea of starting a company started forming. "We started talking and developing this idea: What if we started an opera company based on all the ideal scenarios of performance and education, instead of money? Both of us had a running list in our head of how it should be. I started sharing our vision and asked for feedback from my other mentors – veterans of the opera world. Soon, Mr. Kellogg and I came up with criteria on how we could best identify the strongest and best scenario in which to start a successful opera company." e next step was to find a place that most closely matched their needs. "I became this grunt who traveled the country digging in the mud to find this special place," Mr. Starkey said. "We tried to identify cities that met these criteria, and came up with a list of about ten. We didn't look at corporate support as criteria," he said. "Companies come and go, but people don't. e people buy the The 2005 SAI Philanthropies Board, Inc. inspected the SAI practice cabin at the Brevard Music Center in the days before the dedication of the fraternity's new National Headquarters building in Asheville. MUSIC continued on page 4

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