Lake Lure Music Festival’s Saturday night Salon Musique concert at The Gardens & Patio at Rumbling Bald on Lake Lure.

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 "being like 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. 

Violinist Chee-Yun subtly plays a section of Passacaglia

Wendy Sutter intently feels the music…

After the concert the musicians spoke with attendees on The Gardens' Porch as a fire pit warmed folks on this crisp Fall night. RBLL provided wonderful food and along with the Festival, provided all guests with free drinks for the evening. 

In addition to the music, the LLMF was able to make signifiant contributions to both the LLCA 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 teacher 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 struggle to learn if they are hungry, and In order to help out in our own small way, we donated $5000 to Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach, presenting it to HNGO President and Office Manager, Karen King to help kids (and their families) who struggle with food insecurity. It is our hope to continue to support these two important institutions. 

Please see the photos below of the presentation of the donations.

Charlie Ellis of the Lake Lure Community Education Foundation & Mark Hamann, Vice-Chair Board of Directors, LLCA accept a $5000 donation from the Lake Lure Music Festival w/ Jeff Geisler, General Manager, RBLL and 2023 Presenting Sponsor and LLMF Producing Artistic Director, Chris Dolman 

Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach President & Office Manager Karen King accepts a $5000 donation from Jeff Geisler, RBLL and Chris Dolman, Lake Lure Music Festival 

Photos Credits: Nicole LaBosco, photographer