Mountain Melodies

As James Christian Pfohl walked through an overgrown field in Brevard, North Carolina, briars tugged at his shirt sleeves and sweat dripped from his brow. It was 1943, and he was about to establish the Brevard Music Center—one of the country’s most award-winning summer training programs and music festivals. He just didn’t know it yet.

“This is the spot,” the bespectacled 31-year-old said to his wife, Louise. She nodded in agreement, and the two paused to survey the 100 acres before them.

Though boys once flocked here to attend Camp Transylvania, the place had fallen into disrepair since the camp’s closure three years prior. The buildings sagged with disuse, the pond sat dry, and a lone cow grazed the property. But Pfohl didn’t care about appearances. He was more concerned about sound—or, more accurately, the lack thereof.

A skilled organist, Pfohl attended the National Music Camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan during the summer of 1929. Four years later, when Pfohl stepped on as the director of music at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, he wasted no time establishing a similar summer experience for local youths.

“Even back then, he believed the South needed one of those—its very own center of music,” said Jason Posnock, the president and CEO of BMC. “And this young, audacious, visionary genius was going to be the one to make it happen.”

In 1936, Pfohl founded the Davidson College Music School Camp. The program successfully operated at the college for seven years. In 1943, however, the United States Army repurposed the campus into a training facility, thereby annexing Pfohl’s 50-some high school instrumentalists to Queens College.

Located in the heart of downtown Charlotte, Queens College was less than ideal for music making. Between car horns, wailing sirens, and boisterous passersby, Pfohl could barely hear himself think. The camp needed a quieter, more secluded setting where instructors could execute what Pfohl described as a “well-balanced program of outdoor recreation and instruction in music and art.”

This is how Pfohl found himself wading through weeds in Western North Carolina.

Striking a Chord

In 1944, Pfohl hosted the first summer session of the Transylvania Music Camp (later to be renamed the Brevard Music Center in 1955). It exceeded expectations.

According to Posnock, the “faculty comprised musicians from the best schools and orchestras” and “talented students flocked from all over.” The effort was so incredibly successful that it even attracted the attention of Henry Fillmore, president of the American Bandmasters Association.

“This is one of the best and finest music school camps in the nation, and I have visited and worked with all of them,” Fillmore told the Transylvania Times in the 1940s. “...I have been really surprised [by] how much these young students…have learned in such a short amount of time.”

Emboldened by favorable reviews, Pfohl and his business partners purchased the 100-acre parcel—a move that would forever change the world of music.

In the summers to follow, students from across the country headed to the camp, violins and trumpets in tow. Per a 1950 report from CBS Radio Director James Fassett, the bucolic campus hummed with music and young talent.

“In a patch of woods, I found an eleven-year-old boy playing a flute. By a brook, I found another student with a bassoon. In a cabin, there was a tuba player,” he noted. “A little later, I stumbled upon the auditorium where the student orchestra was rehearsing. They were doing a difficult piece by Liszt, and it was their second rehearsal. It was amazing.”

The gangly, freckle-faced adolescents were able to pull off the intricate composition thanks, in part, to world-class instruction. From the very beginning, Pfohl curated teachers from august institutions such as The Juilliard School and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He wanted kids to broaden their horizons by rubbing elbows with the very best—Henry Janiec included.

Conducting the Next Generation

A dynamic musician and conductor, Janiec was hired in 1964 to serve as the center’s artistic director. Once on campus, he promptly began fine-tuning how faculty approached teaching, developing “the student curriculum that still serves as the foundation for educational training,” said Posnock.

Now open to students between the ages of 14 to 29, the BMC Summer Institute emphasizes “nurturing, supportive, encouraging, and hands-on learning,” said Jenny Snyder Kozoroz, the program director.

“High school orchestral students receive daily music theory and music literature [instruction] throughout the summer,” she explained. Meanwhile, all students enroll in instrument-specific seminars and are encouraged to take master classes with special guest artists.

But learning happens outside the classroom, too. As Posnock confirmed, “Learning happens everywhere.”

An aspiring saxophonist may perfect their pitch during an impromptu one-on-one lesson, for instance. Or, a classical guitarist may gain confidence during a last-minute rehearsal on the stage of the Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium.

Students have also been known to have breakthroughs while lazing on the banks of Lake Milner, hiking the rhododendron-lined trails around campus, and even eating in the cafeteria—a place where, according to Posnock, “students and faculty dine together and talk about the ins and outs of the profession, who their favorite artists are, and what recordings they can’t live without.”

Nick Platoff, a trombonist who attended the Summer Institute as a teen in 2008 and 2009, fondly remembers such mealtime meetings.

“For the first time in my life, I wasn’t the biggest music nerd in the room,” he said. “I ate lunch … with other kids who were also obsessed with discovering Mahler, and Beethoven, and long tones, and breathing exercises ….”

Just days into his first summer session at BMC, Platoff knew he had to pursue music as a career. And so, he did.

After graduating high school, Platoff left his native Connecticut to study music at Northwestern University. He then moved to Miami Beach to pursue a fellowship with the New World Symphony. Today, Platoff plays trombone with the San Francisco Symphony.

According to Platoff, his time in the mountains was “game-changing.” And not just because he discussed Mahler over pizza.

Taking Center Stage

For many students—Platoff included—the most awe-inspiring aspect of the BMC experience is the Summer Festival.

Hosted every year from June to August, the Summer Festival is an opportunity for young musicians to join their instructors on stage and share their talents with the community.

“Public performances are an integral part of a musician’s education. They are points along an arc of learning,” Posnock said. “And here at Brevard, they are exhilarating, as students and faculty sit side-by-side, professionals passing down age-old traditions to the new generation.”

Pfohl hosted the first Summer Festival at the conclusion of the 1946 season. Over the next decade, it expanded from a three-day fête to a two-week jubilee packed with precocious performances, some of which Pfohl broadcasted nationwide.

“The orchestra performed important works by Mahler and Stravinsky years before most Southern orchestras,” Posnock said. “In fact, Brevard Music Center staged the very first full performance of Beethoven’s famous “9th Symphony” south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

Today, the Summer Festival consists of more than 80 concerts hosted in the Parker Concert Hall, Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium, and the Porter Center—a venue located about two miles away on the Brevard College campus.

In the past, esteemed headliners have included the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Alicia de Larrocha, Frederica von Stade and Victor Borge. Helming it all is Keith Lockhart, BMC alumnus and artistic director.

As the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra and the chief guest conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, Lockhart knows a thing or two about putting on a good show. For the 2024 season, he has curated what Posnock described as an “exciting lineup of world-renowned performers.”

Major works scheduled for the summer range from Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5. to George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Meanwhile, performers will include everyone from pianist Wu Han to banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck.

BMC will also welcome Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for a weeklong residency that will include lessons, workshops, and three performances culminating in a collaboration with Lockhart and the BMC Orchestra.

Posnock expects the summer to be memorable, not only for students and faculty but also for visitors.

Leaving a Loud and Clear Legacy

According to a 2015 economic impact study prepared by Western Carolina University professor Inhyuck “Steve” Ha, the 40,000-some concertgoers that visit BMC every summer are crucial to the local economy.

On average, they spend about eight days cozying up in local lodging, dining at mom-and-pop eateries, exploring natural resources and patronizing shops, art galleries, and other establishments.

Some visitors are so smitten with their experience that they choose to stay. In fact, about 65 percent of those polled for the economic impact study agreed that BMC influenced their decision to select Brevard as a primary or secondary residence.

When combined, this activity generates nearly $15 million in total economic impact. As Ha summarized, “Brevard Music Center is…a strong economic driver for Brevard, Transylvania County, and local businesses.”

Of course, Pfohl wasn’t thinking about dollar signs when he first walked through that overgrown field in 1943. He was just thinking about how he might inspire people like himself: young, dreamy-eyed musicians who want nothing more than to fill the world with joyous sounds.

“Full of artistic aspiration and a commitment to education, it was a ‘vacation with a purpose,’” Posnock said, describing those nascent years at BMC. “This musical oasis was dedicated to developing the ability and broadening the horizons of young musicians, promoting fellowship among the participants, and enriching our musical culture.”

And it still is. This June, BMC will welcome more than 700 students to its forested campus. Some will go on to be prolific pianists, famous flutists, and revered composers. More will go on to be high school teachers, librarians, and lawyers. But all will continue Pfohl’s legacy in their own way.

“The future of the Brevard Music Center is bright,” Posnock said. “BMC will continue to stand as one of the country’s premier summer institutes and festivals.”