"People always assume It’s
race horses we’re pulling In
our covered trailer as we tour
the country,” said the Bill half
of the M^leys, concert duo-
pianists. The Pat half finished
the sentence, "and we don’t
bother to tell them differently.”
"It’s our two tons of piano
and our wadrobe,” they chimed'
in together. The Medleys are
like that. One starts a sentence
and the other finishes it--no
interruption, just the same train
of thought. That’s what has made
them so successful as duo-
pianists.
They’ll appear here next
Thursday night, at the New Bern
High School Auditorium, as the
first presentation of the New
Bern Community Concert As
sociation. Admittance for local
music lovers is by member
ship card only.
The Medleys have no
children. Married 15 years, they
formed their piano team while
still in college. They are now
on their seventh concert sea
son and fourth transcontinental
tour. They have played concerts
in every state but one, and
before long that one will be ad
ded to make it unanimous.
Last year they had a pre
carious drive across the frozen
McKenzie River to reach Yel-
C6pada, where fhey gave the
first piano concert ever in that
isolated place 250 miles from
the Arctic Circle.
It was February when Bill
and Pat Medley dragged $12,000
worth of concert grand pianos
across the frozen wasteland on
a road that frequently couldn’t
be found beneath the snow, and
in temperatures that would have
killed them in 30 minutes if
their car had stalled.
They traveled hundreds of
miles to keep an engagement
they had been foolish enough
to make. “Before it was over,
I felt more like a missionary
than a musician,” says Bill.
“Now 1 think I must have
been a plain idiot.”
The Medleys arrived in the
little Canadian town and at the
school auditorium Just three
minutes before they were
scheduled to play. Bill quick
ly dressed in his wrinkled con
cert tails, and Pat attired her
self in a gown of shimmer
ing white.
They were greeted by a
thundering ovation. After all,
nobody drove the long route
they had traversed in weather
such as this except trucks that
carried food, and the trucks
went in pairs. Natives were
astounded by the spunk of the
couple from Fayetteville,
Arkansas.
Bill was somev/hat astounded
too, when he glanced at Pat
as they bowed and smiled in
the center of the stage. Through
clenched teeth. Bill whispered
to her, “What do you think you
are doing?”
She gasped in panic when she
discovered what Bill had dis
covered. *T had my gown on,”
she says, ’ but I forgot to take
off my galoshes.” A mistake
like that was understandable for
a Southerner who only moments
Q
The NEW BERN
PUBLISHED WFBir. -
jjB public Library
407 FQvf Si*
\n
Si Per Copy
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1962
EVER THE SAME—Children are children the world
over, and these Bern youngsters viewing a miniature
reproduction of the Swiss Alns could easily nass for
some of New Bern’s small fry. They are understand
ably proud of the land of their birth. New Bern and its
surrounding countryside has no mountains, but it does
share with its mother city a deep desire for peace and
keen of freedom.
FOR SLUMBER SWEET—Sleep, that knits up the rav-
ell’d sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life, sore
labour’s bath; balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s sec
ond course, chief nourisher in life’s feast. Thus did
Shakespeare describe the rest that comes when day is
done. Surely, this alcove bedroom in New Bern’s Tr^-
on Palace extends such repose to the imaginative visi
tor.—Photo by .John R. Baxter