Experience the finest among North Carolina Vacation Rentals in Highlands NC at The Lakehouse on Lake Glenville in Cashiers

The Brevard Music Center celebrates its 75th music festival season this year with 18 orchestra programs, 5 opera productions and dozens of chamber music and solo recitals in a casual, accessible setting. The long list of globally recognized musical guests range from cellist to Yo-Yo Ma to Swiss conductor Matthias Bamert to renowned American Songbook singer Michael Feinstein.

This year’s six-week festival schedule (June 4 – August 7), is perhaps the Center’s most ambitious yet, including Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, requiring a woman’s chorus, children’s chorus and a vast array of wind, percussion and brass instruments all under the direction of Keith Lockhart who is also conductor of the Boston Pops and back for his fourth season as artistic director of the BMC.

Among the season’s favorite returning programs is the Patriotic Pops concert July 3, and for a fundraiser on August 1, the schedule reaches into American popular song with celebrated singer Michael Feinstein performing “The Sinatra Project”.

Performances are held on the campus of Brevard College in a venue that combines concert hall acoustics with alfresco features such as lawn seating. It’s very informal, very casual. Nobody dresses up except for the musicians as you listen to music in fresh mountain air and under the stars. www.brevardmusic.org. 888-384-8682.

The drive to Brevard from the Lakehouse at Katie Camp winds east along Route 64 past waterfalls, golf courses and Lake Toxaway. Plan to stop along the way fora pre-concert dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, the Brown Trout Mountain Grille, situated in an old train depot. Call ahead for reservations. 828-877-3474.

Tucked in a 100-year old train depot, between Cashiers and Lake Toxaway, is one of my favorite dinner spots – the Brown Trout Mountain Grille. Here, the Appalachian cuisine is complimented  by the burnished Chestnut wood walls and a fire burning in the river rock fireplace. It is often my first choice when I am at the Lakehouse and want to spend a relaxed evening at dinner with friends.

A Brief History of the Brown Trout Mountain Grille…
In the heyday of the early 1900′s when flappers filled the dance halls, Henry Ford’s Model T’s filled the streets and the Rockefellers, Firestones and Vanderbilts dominated the American landscape, a Blue Ridge Mountain paradise was born.

With their hoop skirts, hunting rifles and knickers, travelers from Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and New York rode the rails from Asheville through the foothills and up the Continental Divide to experience a unique lifestyle that offered a delightful contrast to the big city hustle to which they were accustomed. The last stop on this enchanting journey was at the old train depot that is now the home of the Brown Trout Mountain Grille. It was from here, by horse drawn carriage, that visitors were transported with their wooden steamer trunks to the famous Lake Toxaway Inn across the road. The natural beauty of the majestic setting had been discovered and America’s “Little Switzerland” holiday venue was born.

Brown Trout Mountain Grille, Highway 64 between Cashiers and Lake Toxaway, 828-877-3474.