Durham Cellist to Perform at Chamber Music Festival

From Staff Reports

In such historic and exotic places as a mountaintop chapel, The Keowee Chamber Players perform acoustic music by such well-known composers as Mozart, Paganini and Rachmaninoff along with modern voices of America and African-American and Mexican-American sounds.

Cellist Tim Holley of Durham will join Keowee for the second week of concerts.Holley and Steinbeck were fellow students at Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1980\’s. Recently Tim answered a few questions about his life and path in music. Here he shares early memories and thoughts on music and family life:

How did you become interested in music and, more specifically, classical music?

Holley: “My earliest memories of musical attraction are of hearing LPs — the same 33- and 78-rpm records that hip-hop deejays play backward on their turntables. One of my aunts had stacks of 45s of Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, James Cleveland, Mahalia Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Leontyne Price. There was an astonishing degree of musical variety available to me right at home. Of course as kids growing up, we weren\’t allowed to listen to any and everything, but by then our sense of taste had already developed to the point that we weren\’t listening indiscriminately, anyway.”

So you come from a family of music lovers?

Holley: “Music has always been a vital part of my family, their corporate sense of identity and their “short list of priorities” as human beings. I\’d say that four things mattered most to my folks as they raised my brother, sister and me — the Lord, family, education, and music. Church remains an important function of my life as an outgrowth of my “home-training” — it is humorously predictable that I work at a university, having come from a family stocked with so many relatives that either taught in the public schools or had experience as educators. Of course, once you have kids, you become an “educator” whether you signed up voluntarily or not!”

Are other people in your family professional musicians?

Holley: “My dad\’s oldest brother was an internationally renowned jazz bassist, Major “Mule” Holley (1924-1990). Mule played with just about everybody in New York and overseas, even though he didn\’t work exclusively with any particular group for a considerable length of time. He prided himself in the fact that he was a true “freelance” musician. He told an interviewer in 1986: “I\’ve been freelance for almost 45 years, I\’ve never really had true employment. No fixed address, like they say.\’

Did he and others give you support and encouragement in your career?

Holley: “Mule was busiest during the time I was growing up, but he still managed to keep in close touch with everyone, and as I began do more professional playing he\’d suggest that I try coming to New York, but I was scared to death at the thought of doing so. Now that I\’m not as scared musically, I\’m still rather terrified of the idea of living and trying to make a living as a musician in New York! I think that challenge is toughest for us all, but also brings out the best and most creative ideas in us as well.”

How are your life and career going nowadays?

Holley: “The blessing is that I\’ve been able to do what I\’ve been doing thus far, at a level of proficiency that still startles me, and even to have a few experiences to almost appear a braggart when they\’re mentioned.

“My wife Dorinda and I have two daughters, they\’re both great kids, fun to be around; I have high hopes and aspirations for them, and think that they\’ll make the world a better place to live.”

The Keowee Chamber Players will perform at Asheville\’s First Presbyterian Church and the Reuters Center at UNC-Asheville, as well as in other venues here and in Greenville, SC. For more information visit the web site at www.keoweechambermusic.org or call 828-254-7123.