The program features soprano and WCU alumna Jacquelyn Culpepper performing songs from “Appalachian Songbook” by Kenneth Frazelle. Former WCU English professor Kathryn Stripling Byer will read poems from her books Wildwood Flower and Black Shawl. Pianist Philip Bush will perform “Wildwood Flowers,” also by Frazelle.

Culpepper has performed for audiences across the United States, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and Asia. Career highlights include performing more than 85 roles in opera and oratorio, and solo concert tours throughout the world with American Voices, a nonprofit organization whose mission has been to further the appreciation and understanding of American music and culture.

Byer served as North Carolina’s first female poet laureate, from 2005 to 2010. Her poetry, prose and fiction have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic, Georgia Review, Shenandoah and other publications. Her most-recent collection, Descent,  received the Roanoke-Chowan Award from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, as well as the Southern Independent Booksellers Award in Poetry. She was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2012 and received an honorary doctor of letters degree from WCU in 2013.

Bush, a highly sought-after chamber musician, is regarded as a pianist of uncommon versatility during an active and unconventional career that has taken him to many parts of the globe. Since his New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he has appeared as recitalist throughout North America, as well as in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.

Free. 828.227.7242