Graffiti

This is the closest thing I had to graffiti on my phone. It's from a street in Brevard, NC, home of the Brevard Music Festival. The festival has happened every summer since 1946, but their 2020 season has been canceled.

When I lived in North Carolina, I would usually make it to a few of their performances--usually an opera, a couple of symphonies, and some chamber music. They had a free lunchtime program called "Bach's Lunch," but I was never able to make it because my work was too far away for the lunch-hour drive.

Every year (except this one, obviously), I feel just a little envious of all the young people who get to spend an entire summer studying music, playing music, meeting and playing with other talented musicians. When I was a teenager and college student, I didn't even know there were such a thing as classical music camps. I wonder if I would have been more serious about piano if I'd had an opportunity like the ones offered by Brevard Music Center.

Actually ... if I'd been given the opportunity, I probably would have chickened out. Or I would have hated it because I wouldn't have been near the caliber of the other students. That's the kind of teen/twentysomething I was.

Now that I'm 50, I don't care. Of course, the makers of camps the music contests don't much care about older student musicians anyway. But if Brevard Music Center ever has a program for adult amateurs, I will be there!