Keowee Chamber Music is a delight and regional treasure...Classical Voice of North Carolina, June 2009

• 1999 Flutist Kate Steinbeck visualized bringing friends together for a couple of weeks each summer to play exquisite chamber works in remarkable settings of the Carolinas.
• 2000 Steinbeck invited cellist Elizabeth Austin and violist Andrew Levin to form an ensemble.
• 2001 As Bartram’s Trio, Steinbeck, Austin and Levin presented 4 concerts -- two each in North and South Carolina -- and inaugurated a music festival. They named the burgeoning festival Keowee to honor the original inhabitants of this Carolina region. Keowee or Kuwâhiyi, the correct form in Tsalagi, the Cherokee language, was one of the largest and most important settlements of the Cherokee nation and the main village of the lower Cherokee. In the 1960’s this land was flooded to create Lake Keowee; the settlement site now lies under water.
• 2002 Keowee expanded to two different programs over two weeks – six concerts in all - and pianist Dewitt Tipton joined the roster. A Sunday afternoon concert was established in Pretty Place Chapel near Cedar Mountain, NC, offering an inspiring chamber music experience in an incredibly beautiful natural setting.
• 2003 Kate Steinbeck and Elizabeth Austin began co-directing the festival and presented the first guest artists, members of The Countryside Trio of Virginia.
• 2004 Keowee presented its first children’s concert, KEOWEE for KIDS!
• December 8, 2004 Keowee Chamber Music Festival was granted its 501(c3) nonprofit status.
• 2005 Keowee presented critically acclaimed performances and the NC/SC premiere of Andrea Clearfield’s Three Songs after Poems by Pablo Neruda. Read Review
• Invited to be ensemble-in-residence at the Reuter Center in 2006, NC Center for Creative Retirement, Keowee presented its first public open rehearsal, a free event to welcome the public into the realm of

        chamber music.

• 2006 Festival programming included Acoustic Dessert, a late evening gallery concert pairing the visual arts with live performance. Keowee was awarded grants from the Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation and the SC Arts Commission to support children’s programming and community outreach efforts.
• Keowee extended its offerings with concerts in September and October: A Slice of Music and Art at the Wedge Gallery in Asheville and Recollections in the Cathedral of All Souls, Biltmore Village, Asheville.
• 2007 KCM and Mallarmé Chamber Players commissioned Paul Schoenfield to write Three Bagatelles for flute, cello and piano and gave world premier during Festival 2007.
• 2008 KCM was one of nine companies—and the first chamber music group--invited to join North Carolina Arts Council’s prestigious cARTwheels program. Keowee musicians together with the Mexican string quartet, La Catrina, created a fantastic touring program and brought our art to more than 6,500 school children statewide!
• Keowee launched a new series, ELEGY, featuring music and poetry of the Holocaust. ELEGY celebrates the power of the human spirit to triumph over adversity through music.
• 2009 Kate Steinbeck became KCM artistic director, after Liz Austin moved to New Mexico. Keowee Chamber Music celebrated its ninth annual festival.
• 2010 Keowee Chamber Music will present its 10th festival, June 8-21.

Roster of Musicians 2001-2009
Kate Steinbeck flute

Elizabeth Baptista-Gaston flute*

Alicia Chapman oboe
Cara Jenkins oboe
Jennifer Merrill horn
Amy Brucksch guitar
Corine Brouwer violin
Ginger Kowal violin
Linda Plaut violin*

Dan Skidmore violin

Leslie Warlick violin
Andrew Levin viola

Simon Értz viola

Lisa Zweben viola
Elizabeth Austin cello
Tim Holley cello*

Jennifer Alexandra Johnston cello

Franklin Keel cello+

Phillip von Maltzahn cello

Fred Bretschger bass*

Amy Brucksch guitar

Jacquelyn Bartlett harp

Judy Bevans piano*

Fabio Parrini piano

Karen Sams piano+

Dewitt Tipton piano

Dan Weiser piano+

Eric Wall organ
Byron Hedgepeth percussion
Tena Greene soprano+

Bradley Howard tenor

Tito Amaya narrator

Mara Simmons reader+

Elizabeth Spragins speaker+

Rick Chess poet+

*Guest artists

+Elegy

cARTwheels: Kate Steinbeck flute; Amy Brucksch guitar; River Guerguerian percussion and Cuerteto La Catrina - Daniel Vega-Albela and Blake Espy violins; Jorge Martínez viola and Alan Daowz cello

Past Festival Programs