THE SIXTH ANNUAL
BREVARD MU5IC FESTIVAL IS
DEDICATED TD HARRY H. STRAUS
The Brevard Music Foundation dedicated the
sixth annual Music Festival to Mr. Harry H. Straus.
At the concert on August 17th, the Rt. Rev. J,
Kenneth Pfohl made the dedication address. Rev.
Pfohl has been Bishop of the Southern Moravian
Province for 25 years and is Pastor of the Home
Moravian Church in Winston-Salem. Following is
his address;
"When at some future date, there is written a
history of The Brevard Music Foundation, which
this evening has welcomed us so cordially to the
second series of concerts of the 1951 Festival, there
will surely be a chapter entitled "Transylvania’s
Loyal Friends”, and among the names that must
be given high place there, if the historian is true
to facts, will be found those of Harry H. Straus and
his devoted wife, Mrs. Martha Washington Straus,
(recently deceased), who shared with him so in
timately and sincerely his interests and benefac
tions in the establishment and development of
this new music center in North Carolina’s lovely
skyland in which they had come to make their own
home.
"Several months ago already, it was determined
that this Sixth Annual Festival should be dedicated
to Mr. Straus’ memory, and on the "In Memoriam”
page of the Festival Program there has been given
not only a pleasing visual reminder of the genial
and kindly gentleman to whom we are now pay
ing tribute, but, with it, his own personal testi
mony to the value of music in the building of char
acter, the enrichment of family life, and in the de
velopment of those cultural spiritual concerns of
community and national interest which make for
a harmonious and stable civilization.
'We commend to your personal and thought
ful consideration the excerpts from the letter which
he sent nearly two years ago to give encouragement
and to speed it on its way!”
'Transylvania Music Camp and Festival are, in
my opinion, one of the greatest additions to the
cultural life of Brevard and its vicinity which has
been created during the last years. My support of
your effort is the result of my observations of the
wonderful work which is being done by you and
your associates. Music plays an inexpressible part
in people’s lives. I assure you of my continued
support of your institution during the years to
come’.
"Surely they are the words of one who has
learned through more than three score years of liv
ing and by the grace of God that 'A man’s life con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things that he
possesseth’—that life’s greatness is not in having
and holding, but in serving and sharing, and that
the greatest need of our day is symbolized by the
harmony and cooperative effort of a great orches
tra m which each individual plays his part as the
Great Conductor of Life directs and gives himself
and his talents to the Glory of God and the bless
ing and enrichment of the life of his fellows. So let
us give ourselves to this unfinished task and con
tinue the work which has been so well begun”.