Summer Music

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The mountains of Western Carolina have drawn Davidson residents for decades. Many families established summer homes in Montreat and many others travel west for the Brevard Music Festival. This summer those traveling include staff from Davidson’s classical  radio station WDAV (check their website).

But it’s not just a tradition of summer vacations ties Davidson to Brevard. The Brevard Music Institute had its beginnings on the Davidson College campus under the direction of James Christian Pfohl.

Pfohl joined the Davidson faculty as a music professor in 1933. Along
with revitalizing the music program, he started a summer music camp in
1936. The first announcement appeared in the May 13, 1936 Davidsonian.

 

His 1939-1940 report noted that “The Fourth Session of the Davidson Music-School-Camp was held on the Davidson Campus last summer and plans are being made for a Fifth Session this summer. This 6 weeks session for High School Boys is of great value to the College and the Department of Music and to the musical life of the entire community and section. The School-Camp has shown continued growth each year and this year, with the announcement of a limited enrollment, applications are being received quite readily. It is interesting to note that 20 of the 60 members of this year’s Symphonic Band attended the Music-School-Camp. Last year the percentage was even larger.”

Three years later, Pfohl reported that the camp was still doing well, despite having to forgo the camp during the summer of 1942 due to war conditions.  He added

While the Music-School-Camp idea is not new in the Mid-West, far West, and East, yet it is an innovation for the South. Music in the South has not been progressing as in other parts of the country, and it is through movements such as this that we hope to build the southern music in schools and communities up to the place it should have.

The camp continued at Davidson until 1944 when it was renamed the Transylvania Music Summer-Camp on grounds near Brevard, NC.  In the photograph below, Pfohl is 3rd from right on the top row. The caption on this photograph identifies as students in the first summer camp.  We would love to hear from anyone in the photograph –or if you know someone in the photograph.