FAMILY AFFAIR: Internationally acclaimed musicians, and sisters, to perform Sunday

Published 7:26 pm Wednesday, January 14, 2015

LIVE ON STAGE, INC. | CONTRIBUTED THREE OF A KIND: The Lee Trio, comprised of three sisters on cello, violin and piano, take the stage at Washington High School’s Performing Arts Center on Sunday as part of the Beaufort County Concert Association’s concert series.

LIVE ON STAGE, INC. | CONTRIBUTED
THREE OF A KIND: The Lee Trio, comprised of three sisters on cello, violin and piano, take the stage at Washington High School’s Performing Arts Center on Sunday as part of the Beaufort County Concert Association’s concert series.

Each has been called a dazzling musician in her own right, but put these three sisters together and they become  “a unique phenomenon” combining cello, violin and piano. They’ve earned international acclaim and performed from Carnegie Hall to Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany. Now Angela, Lisa and Melinda Lee will perform Sunday at the Washington High School Performing Arts Center.

The Beaufort County Concert Association hosts the Lee Trio for its third concert of the season. The concert will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday — the Sunday matinee a new feature BCCA introduced to its repertoire this season.

The Lee sisters are graduates of music programs at Juilliard, Yale and Harvard and since their critically acclaimed 2002 debut at Wigmore Hall in London, the trio has established themselves as a premier international ensemble — winning top prizes at several international competitions, and a grant for promising international artists, according to a press release from Kortney Toney, marketing assistant with Live On Stage, Inc., a company that facilitates bringing national and international acts to local stages.

But bringing acts like the Lee Trio, and other renowned performers like William Florian of New Christy Minstrels, and the “belle of Broadway” Susan Egan, are what the BCCA was organized to do: build and maintain a permanent concert audience in order to be a draw for bigger-named acts on tour. These types of organizations are widespread — several in every state — indicating a real need for entertainment of this caliber, according to Larry Ahlman, president of BCCA.

“It’s a good opportunity for Beaufort County because it’s a big deal to get a named group in here, (to get) the talent that these people have,” Ahlman said. “It’s a nice membership thing: you can guarantee yourself and a partner a good time to get some entertainment four or five times a year, without having to drive to Raleigh, or even Greenville. This is right at the high school — right in our back yard.”

Single tickets for the Lee Trio’s performance are $25 each. To learn more about the Beaufort County Concert Association, visit gobcca.org or call 252-948-1431.