North Carolina Symphony musicians, including harpist Marion Perley and four string players, rehearse in Chapel Hill in 1949. Photo courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina and "Our State."
In Monday’s (7/29) Our State (North Carolina), Billy Warden writes, “The intent had been to kindle a flame of music appreciation, but now it seemed as if attendees at the North Carolina Symphony’s concert might sustain actual burns. The performers had rumbled into Franklin in mountainous Macon County by bus one February in the postwar ’40s. As was customary for the orchestra’s far-flung showcases, the entire region seemed to turn out. Some kids even arrived aboard cattle trucks. But rather than file into a school auditorium, concertgoers huddled against the lashing cold in a sawdust-floored church warmed only by a blazing potbelly woodstove … The performers were … freezing. They played in their overcoats. But play, they did…. By this time, the musicians were used to rolling out the world’s most exquisite compositions amid North Carolina’s humblest environs. The NC Symphony had hit the highway so often that they’d become known as ‘the suitcase symphony.’ Over the decades, this roving carnival of concert musicians expanded the horizons of thousands of schoolkids while drawing ovations from the nation’s arts cognoscenti …By the 1951 concert season, the symphony was logging 8,500 travel miles…. Combined with … an online curriculum and a variety of other engagements, the North Carolina Symphony now reaches around 150,000 students every year.”
