History

BMC: The First Thirty Years

by Thomas W. Joiner

Chapter 3

Enrollment of the Transylvania Music Camp in 1948 doubled that of the preceding year and festival attendance more than tripled that of the previous season. The Summer Theatre Auditorium, which seated nearly one thousand persons, had to be extended on both sides for additional space, and the one-way road curving with the shore of the lake grew into a two-lane drive, with adequate parking space not far from the auditorium. The camp operated with a capacity enrollment. A number of students had to be turned down and applications were already being accepted for the next season. Leading the list of musical events during the 1948 camp season was the annual operatic production. The well- known Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Iolanthe was produced by Frank Lowe of Syracuse, New York, with Doris McGuinn singing the lead role. On the evening of July 8, the camp orchestra presented a surprise concert for Harry H. Straus on the lawn of his residence on Vanderbilt Road, Biltmore Forest. The entire faculty, including concertmaster Leo Panasevitch, appeared in the concert, conducted by guest Thor Johnson. The Straus children. Harry H. Straus, Jr., and Mr. and Mrs. Roger James King of New York, came to show support for their parents, who had taken great interest in the welfare and future of the Transylvania Music Camp and festival.

In many respects, the 1948 camp season was the most successful yet, especially in the eyes of the citizens of Transylvania County. Townspeople, who heretofore knew little of the camp program, were added to the growing list of friends and supporters. The large choir from camp sang in local churches. Many civic clubs held dinner meetings on the campgrounds and saw first-hand how the camp operated. Hundreds enjoyed the camp concerts, given on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, and broadcast all over the state on Charlotte and Asheville radio stations.

The opening concert of the 1948 festival was an all-Tchaikovsky program, including excerpts from Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, and the Fifth Symphony. Critic Dick Pitts wrote

These musicians, with only five rehearsals under their collective belts, performed as if it were four months of rehearsals instead of four days. This 70-piece orchestra includes outstanding musicians from several of the nation's leading symphonies, members of the camp's faculty, and fifteen of the most proficient student musicians of the camp.
- from the Charlotte Observer, August 15, 1948

The success was evidenced by the five minutes of sustained applause at the end of the concert—a triumph for the musicians as well as for conductor Pfohl. "I have never worked with a more willing and cooperative group of musicians," declared Pfohl. "Each one of them seems to want to get it right as much as I do. With musicians like that, you're in a conductor's heaven."

As additional proof that the festival was rapidly attaining national recognition, the Columbia Broadcasting System agreed to present a portion of a festival concert on its 168-station network. The coast-to-coast broadcast originated at the Summer Theatre Auditorium through the facilities of WWNC, Asheville, and was to be rebroadcast from 11:15 to 11:30 that same evening. "This broadcast is expected to bring millions of listeners in touch, not only with the Brevard Music Festival and Transylvania Music Camp, but also with western North Carolina and the town of Brevard as vacation areas," predicted Pfohl.

Pfohl's dream of national recognition was not to be—at least, on August 20, 1948. At 10:14 p.m., engineer Jim Larrick of WWNC, who was in charge of the controls at the camp, received a satisfactory report from Washington. However, one minute after the program of the festival started, the line from Brevard to Asheville went dead. Efforts of technicians to clear the lines in Brevard and Asheville were to no avail. An investigative report revealed nothing but stated that it was a queer coincidence that the trouble should appear just as the program started and disappear shortly after it ended. Erwin Holden, who was on duty at the central office, said the broadcast cleared the Brevard office and the disruption of service occurred somewhere between Brevard and Asheville. The phone line traveled through Hendersonville, although the signal did not go through the switchboard office. The failure of the coast-to-coast broadcast was a great loss for the camp as well as the county. The loss in publicity could not be estimated in dollars and cents, and the true story of the "interrupted broadcast" at Brevard will never be known.

The guest artists for the 1948 festival were among the most gracious and cooperative ever to appear in Brevard. Frances Yeend was to leave the morning after her concert but liked Brevard and the festival so much that she postponed her departure. Joseph Battista, a young pianist, played encore after encore to the delight of the audience. Mr. and Mrs. Harry Straus had soprano Mary Bothwell as their guest during her stay and she, like the other artists, went away to become an ambassador of goodwill for western North Carolina and the Brevard Music Festival. The largest crowd to attend a festival concert—twelve hundred persons—heard tenor William Hess (of the Philadelphia Opera) and the Festival Orchestra on the sixth and final concert of the 1948 festival. At the final board meeting Mrs. Frank Carr was named President of the Brevard Music Festival Association, succeeding Mrs. Henry Carrier. Four new directors were added to the Board—Mrs. Fred Holt, Mrs. Eric Rawls, Jerry Jerome, and Lloyd Burhans.

"Blue Ridge Beethoven"
Lumber and cigarette paper? Yes. But good music is about the last thing travelers on U.S. Highway 64 would expect to find in the Blue Ridge town of Brevard, N.C. (pop. 3,000). Last week, nonetheless, with its Transylvania Music Camp in full swing for a fifth consecutive season, Brevard was momentarily the music capital of the South...
- from Time magazine, August 1, 1949

The highlight of the 1949 camp season was a performance by pianist Eugene List with a seventy-piece student-teacher band before a crowd of twelve hundred. Eugene List performed the Grieg Concerto in A minor with band; band arrangements of various orchestral concertos were common as managements offered their artists opportunities to perform with bands around the country. List and his wife, violinist Carroll Glenn, developed a cordial relationship with the camp, often spending weeks in residence working with campers and performing with orchestra and in recital.

During the summer of 1949, as in most summers, the rains came to Brevard. Moisture played havoc with the pitch of instruments, with bedding, and with camp paths. During concerts rain hit the roof of the shed, pouring onto the ground with such noise that even the brass section met with stiff competition. The sound was so disconcerting to concert-goers that a young man named Gus Tucker decided that he would start raising funds to buy guttering for the shed. He donated his own five dollars and found additional contributions. Then he approached Frank Carr, a building supplies dealer. Mr. Carr had the same idea—in reverse. He already had the guttering loaded on a truck, assuming he could collect for it later.

This example illustrates how business was done at the camp. Brevard attorneys handled the legal details, accountants balanced the books. If the roads were bad, somebody with a bulldozer scraped them. Almost every business establishment in town was either a sponsor at $50 or a patron at $25. Every civic club was involved in a project to improve some aspect of the camp or festival. The camp was badly in need of refrigeration equipment, and when approached, a local Thor Johnson. The other was given by Mrs. Huntington Jackson of Fletcher. A new, modern bathhouse was donated by Frank Carr, and Mack T. Osborne gave an automatic hot water heater for the building. One of the most notable improvements of the camp was the kitchen—it was repainted, larger windows were added, and a complete rewiring was done free of charge by Harold Bangs. Davidson College loaned electric toasters, an electric mixer, and a deep-well fryer among other equipment. The lodge, offices, dining hall, and auditorium were repainted with materials furnished by J. S. Silversteen and H. N. Carrier. Frank Carr donated a new hardwood floor for the auditorium stage and made other improvements to the stage without cost to the camp. The campgrounds were improved by A. J. Montanari and members of the Junior Garden Club. Four worthy young people received scholarships given by both the North and South Carolina Federations of Music Clubs as well as the National Federation. The camp was the center for summer meetings of officers of the two state federations, and the national officers began visiting Brevard for the first time.

Perhaps, in order to make amends for the failure of the 1948 broadcast, CBS announced they would broadcast the first festival concert, on Friday night, August 12, coast-to-coast. Apparently, this thirty-minute excerpt from the concert was delivered as scheduled.

The 1949 festival included a variety of programs and soloists. Pianist Jacob Lateiner performed the Chopin Concerto No. 1 in brilliant fashion, offering two encores to the delight of the audience. Nell Tangeman, mezzo-soprano, made such a vital impression on the audience for her performance the Brahms Alto Rhapsody that she was recalled six times. Other soloists included Mariquita Moll, soprano, and Ruggerio Ricci, violinist. In addition to the usual solo performances with orchestra by visiting artists, an expanded choral program permitted performance of several large choral works with orchestra and solo voices. Most spectacular of these was the final festival concert featuring Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Mariquita Moll, Nell Tangeman, Chester Watson, and William Hess joined the hundred-voice Festival Chorus, under the direction of Lester McCoy, director of the Michigan Choral Union. Singers were drawn from Asheville, Waynesville, Brevard College, the town of Brevard, camp faculty, and outstanding campers. The groups rehearsed in their various locations and gathered at the camp for intensive rehearsals during festival week. According to Time magazine, this was the first performance of the Ninth ever given in the South.

The capacity audience of twelve hundred recalled Pfohl and the soloists again and again to take bows. A birthday cake with four candles was presented to Pfohl, celebrating the successful conclusion of the fourth annual festival.

This year there were star performers in several of the instrumental sections. One could wish for space to give each a line of approbation. How they work! Intensity, concentration, indefatigable energy were everywhere in evidence at the rehearsals. The first chair player of a great orchestra and the fourteen-year-old trumpet prodigy worked with equal obedience and patience. Hence, the performances, and indeed the whole enterprise, were highlighted by fine spirit and individual pride in the doing of a good job. The sponsors, Trustees, and employees of the Foundation seem inspired with the same spirit. No road is too long, no task too heavy. And now, in this fourth year, the results were gratifying and the possibilities seemed infinite.
- from the Musical Courier, September, 1949

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