Polished Performances

(continued from page 7) of the past three seasons. Andy will return following intermission to perform the original piano version of Modest Mussorgsky's monumental Pictures at an Exhibition. In addition to being a pianistic tour-de-force this performance will celebrate a grant from the SC Arts Commission supporting our collaboration with area high school art teachers and the USCB Art faculty. Mussorgsky conceived the score with specific pictures in mind, combining the power of the visual and audial arts. While Andy performs Pictures at an Exhibition, listeners will view selected artwork submitted by area juniors and seniors. Andy will then provide a special student concert on Monday morning where art awards and scholarships will be presented.

The February 19 concert exemplifies the idea that programming is more art than science. Its palindromic form moves from chatty, feel-good American entertainment to thought-provoking German inner depths and back out to New York sunshine, leaving listeners with a skip in their step and a re-nourished soul. Beginning with George Gershwin (I Got Rhythm, for Piano) and ending with Samuel Barber's saucy, splashy Souveniers, for Piano 4-hands, Op. 28, the meaty middle features Brahms (“Intermezzo” and “Capriccio” from Fantasien, Op. 116 for Piano), Robert Schumann (Dichterliebe “A Poet's Love,” for Tenor and Piano. Op. 48), Franz Schubert, (Fantasia in F minor, for Piano 4-hands, D. 940) and Richard Strauss (Morgan! “Tomorrow,” Op. 27, No. 4, for Tenor and Piano.) Andy will be joined by fellow pianist Orion Weiss, an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner, repeat concerto performer with Violinist James Ehnes

major U.S. orchestras, including those of Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and a frequent chamber music collaborator. Joining the pianists will be Cantor Daniel Mutlu, who has sung with preeminent organizations and houses of worship, most notably in the Trinity Choir Wall Street, the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand Opera, the Houston Bach Society, and as the main cantorial soloist for the Night Holocaust Project on international tours.

The season’s final concert, on March 12, has three works: William Grant Still's tender Suite for Violin and Piano, Arno Babajanian's passionate, romantic Piano Trio in F-sharp minor, and one of Felix Mendelssohn's greatest and most popular chamber works, Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49. Violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti, equally versatile as a chamber musician, concertmaster, and educator and Juilliard-trained Raphael Bell, a principal cellist, chamber musician, teacher, and festival director across Europe and the US, will join our extraordinarily talented Artistic Director. Hearing him on a regular basis has spoiled series subscribers as they have come to expect his witty and unscripted stage remarks, brilliant pianism, and artistic intensity. Not one to sit on his laurels while away from Beaufort, Andy recently recorded a new solo album of American composers for release on an international label in 2023 and has readied himself for November 2022 performances of the complete Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle with James Ehnes in Melbourne, Australia.

Each of these artists has invested a significant portion of their career to the emotionally fulfilling creation of chamber music, where involvement with colleagues and audience is personal in scale and intense in conversation. The difference between the Beaufort and New York City chamber music scenes is that here the artists do most of the traveling. For the audience, the drive is shorter and parking is less expensive. The talent of the performers, however, it the same.

It is possible to listen and watch almost all of this season's music as a YouTube video on your phone or in HD. That awareness generates a type of detached exposure but does not create magic. For a deeper immersion one needs to be in a silent, darkened performance space at a specific time, surrounded by fellow audience members, watching and listening to brilliant performers bring to life skillfully crafted works of human invention. When these attributes converge it creates an experience larger than the sum of its elements. It's also one-and-done. The hundreds of intimate connections seen and heard during the performance will never be repeated exactly as you experience them at that moment.

Join us for USCB Chamber Music's impressive 43rd season. There are multiple ways to enjoy the concerts—In Person, Live-Stream and On-Demand. All virtual concerts are professionally produced, creating great viewing opportunities. On-Demand is accessible four days after the concert and available to view at your leisure for three weeks. For concert/ticket information, go to www.uscbchambermusic. com or call 843-208-8246, Monday through Friday. All concerts will be at the USCB Center for the Arts on Carteret Street at 5:00 pm on the following Sundays: November 6, December 11, January 22, February 19 and March 12.

Flutist Tara Helen O'Connor

Seventh Annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival

The Pat Conroy Literary Festival began as Pat Conroy’s 70th birthday celebration in October 2015 and now continues as an annual signature event of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center. This year’s Conroy Festival will be held on October 28 through 30 as a series of free and ticketed events in Beaufort and Bluffton featuring author discussions, writers workshops, a storytelling and musical performance, and a screening of the film Conrack in honor of the 50th anniversary of Pat Conroy’s 1972 teaching memoir The Water Is Wide.

Advance registration for all events is now open at www.patconroyliteraryfestival.org.

Author Thrity Umrigar

This year’s presenting authors and workshop instructors include journalist and novelist Thrity Umrigar, author of Honor; Edgar Award-winning novelist and founder of The Moth, George Dawes Green, author of The Kingdoms of Savannah; four winners of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction: Nathan Harris, author of The Sweetness of Water, De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills, Bren McClain, author of One Good Mama Bone, and Mindy Friddle, author of Secret Keepers; memoirist Judy Goldman, author of Child; Will You Grow founder Angelique Medow; Pat Conroy’s Beaufort High School student Valerie Sayers, author of The Age of Infidelity; Conroy’s Daufuskie Island student Sallie Ann Robinson, author of Sallie Ann Robinson’s Kitchen; and children’s authors Rebecca Dwight Bruff, author of Stars of Wonder, and Susan Montanari, author of The Halloween Tree.

FRIDAY EVENTS, 10/28

3:00-4:30 p.m.: Author Event: Panel discussion with four winners of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction: Nathan Harris (The Sweetness of Water), De’Shawn Charles Winslow (In West Mills), Bren McClain (One Good Mama Bone), and Mindy Friddle (Secret Keepers). Book signing to follow, at the USC Beaufort Center for the Arts (free event, donations welcome)

5:00-6:15 p.m.: The Water is Wide Panel

Discussion: Honoring the 50th anniversary of Pat Conroy’s 1972 teaching memoir The Water Is Wide, the panel discussion will include Conroy’s Daufuskie Island student turned celebrity chef and cultural historian Sallie Ann Robinson, historian Larry Rowland, and two of Conroy’s teaching colleagues, George Westerfield and Peter Walter, moderated by Ellen Malphrus, at the USC Beaufort Center for the Arts (free event, donations welcome)

6:45-9:00 p.m.: Film Screening of

Conrack, also featuring live vocal performances by Marlena Smalls, teacher recognitions, and a new scholarship announcement, at the USC Beaufort Center for the Arts (free event, donations welcome)

Novelist and Moth founder George Dawes Green

SATURDAY EVENTS, 10/29

11:00-noon: Virtual Author Event: Judy Goldman, author of the memoir Child, live-streamed on the Conroy Center’s Facebook page and also accessible on Zoom with advance registration. (free event, donations welcome)

1:00-2:30 p.m.: Author Event: Thrity Umrigar, author of the novel Honor, in conversation with Margaret Evans. Book signing to follow, at the USC Beaufort Center for the Arts (free event, donations welcome) 2:30-4:00 p.m.: Author Event: George Dawes Green, author of the novel The Kingdoms of Savannah, in conversation with Scott Graber. Book signing to follow, at the USC Beaufort Center for the Arts (free event, donations welcome) 7:00-9:45 p.m.: Storytelling Event: With Moth founder George Dawes Green, featuring MC Jon Goode, Scott Gibbs and the Beaufort Mass Choir, Alibis with Peter Zamuka and Steve Faulkner, plus several local storytellers. Followed by a champagne and cake reception celebrating the Moth’s 25th anniversary, at the USC Beaufort Center for the Arts ($25/person, $10/student discount)

SUNDAY EVENT, 10/30

2:00-3:30 p.m.: Author Event: Children’s Authors Rebecca Dwight Bruff (Stars of Wonder) and Susan Montanari (The Halloween Tree) in conversation with Sally Sue Lavigne of the Storybook Shoppe. Book signing to follow, at Lowcountry Presbyterian Church of Bluffton (free event, donations welcome)

The 7th Annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival is made possible by the generous support and collaboration of the Robert S. Handler Trust, the Reba and Dave Williams Foundation for Literature and the Arts, the Willie Morris Awards at the University of Mississippi, the Rhett House Inn, the Anchorage 1770 Inn, the Best Western Sea Islands Inn, Susan DeLoach Photography, Hahn Family Wines, Oyster Cay Collection, Eugene A. Rugala & Associates, University of South Carolina Beaufort, Lowcountry Presbyterian Church, the Beaufort Bookstore, the Storybook Shoppe, NeverMore Books, Annie Powell - Welcome Home Beaufort, Allen Patterson Builders, Foolish Frog, Zippy Lube of Sea Island Parkway, Lynn & Wheeler, CPAs, PA, Marly Rusoff & Mihai Radulescu, Carol Dawson, Patricia A. Denkler, and others. Learn more about the Pat Conroy Literary Center online at www.patconroyliterarycenter. org or in person at 601 Bladen Street in downtown Beaufort, where the Center is open to the public Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 4:00 p.m. or other times by appointment.

910 Port Republic Street Tuesday - Saturday 11-5

Karen Spears Zacharias at NeverMore Books Katherine Reay Kicks Off Lunch with Author Series

NeverMore Books, in partnership with the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, will host an evening with award-winning writer and Gold-Star Daughter Karen Spears Zacharias, author of The Murder Gene, on Tuesday, October 4, at 5:00 p.m. This free event will be held at NeverMore Books (910 Port Republic Street) with books available for sale and signing. Please call NeverMore to reserve your seat: 843-812-9460. The author conversation will also be live-streamed on the Conroy Center Facebook page.

About the Book: As the soft-spoken, highly intelligent son of missionaries in Morganton, North Carolina, Luke Chang gave no indication of the killer he would become. But after hacking into a teacher’s computer at his school, a stint in the Marines was his only option. As a young recruit, Luke was taunted for being a virgin who didn’t cuss, drink, or smoke pot. That all changed when Luke met Casey Byrams, a fun-loving musician and fellow Marine from Cullman, Alabama. Their friendship set off a series of events that would eventually lead Luke to Pendleton, Oregon, where he brutally murdered nineteenyear-old Amyjane Brandhagen in August 2012. When Luke attempted to kill another woman almost a year later, Pendleton Police knew they had a serial-killer wannabe on their hands.

Some forty years prior to Amyjane’s murder, Luke’s maternal grandfather, Gene Dale Lincoln, murdered a young Michigan woman and attempted to abduct a twelve-year-old girl. The similarities between the violent actions of grandfather and grandson compels the question: Is there such a thing as a murder gene?

Praise for The Murder Gene: George Singleton, author of You Want More, says, "Written with compassion and insight, The Murder Gene is a cross between Forensic Files and In Cold Blood. I love this book."

Bob Welch, author of Boy in the Mirror writes, "In a world of dime-a-dozen crime stories, Zacharias unearths one like no other I've read. This exhaustively researched book is deep in its linking of two murders to nature as well as nurture, wide in its piecing together thousands of pieces to create a single puzzle, and chilling in its reminder that evil, unfortunately, abides. The result is a book that will make you reconsider the insidiousness of murder in an all-new way.”

Karen Spears Zacharias is an awardwinning author of numerous books, both fiction and nonfiction. A former crime beat reporter, she has taught journalism at Central Washington University, and her work has been featured on NPR, CNN, and Good Morning America. Her op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post and the New York Times. A Gold-Star daughter, Karen and her husband Tim make their home in Deschutes County, Oregon.

Learn more about NeverMore Books at www.nevermorebooks.com. Learn more about the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center at www.patconroyliterarycenter.org

Author Karen Spears Zacharias

Katherine Reay Kicks Off Lunch with Author Series

The University of South Carolina Beaufort Lunch with Author 2022-2023 Series begins on Wednesday, October 5 at The Belfair Clubhouse, starting at noon. Katherine Reay will be discussing her historical fiction novel The London House. A national bestselling and awardwinning novelist, Reay is author of Dear Mr. Knightley, Lizzy and Jane, The Brontë Plot, A Portrait of Emily Price, The Austen Escape, and The Printed Letter Bookshop.

Author Katherine Reay

About the Book: Uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation.

Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover.

Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.” Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of a coming world war.

Each letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt a traitor and Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past? Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed everything.

About the Author: Katherine Reay is the national bestselling and award-winning author of Dear Mr. Knightley, Lizzy and Jane, The Brontë Plot, A Portrait of Emily Price, The Austen Escape, and The Printed Letter Bookshop. All Katherine’s novels are contemporary stories with a bit of classical flair. Katherine holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and is a wife, mother, former marketer, and avid chocolate consumer. After living across the country and a few stops in Europe, she now happily resides outside Chicago, IL.

Join us for lunch with author Katherine Reay at Belfair Country Club on Wednesday, October 5 at 12:00 pm. Books will be available for purchase and the author will be signing books. Reservations must be made by September 27. Tickets are $50. The Lunch With Author series will continue on November 22, with Karen Grassle and her new book Bright Lights, Prairie Dust. For additional information go to: USCBCenter fortheArts.com or call 843-521-4145.

Want To Go?

USCB Lunch with Author Series featuring Author Katherine Reay

Wednesday, October 5 • Noon Belfair Clubhouse, 200 Belfair Oaks Blvd, Bluffton Tickets – $50.00 USCBCenterForTheArts.com