On October 29, the UNC Charlotte Department of Music hosted the Carol Brice Branch of North Carolina, the state branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. Dr. Carl DuPont, assistant professor of voice and vice-president of the Carol Brice Branch, presided over the meeting.
After the conclusion of the business meeting, the 20 members of the organization, drawn from universities across the state of North Carolina, were treated to a concert by UNC Charlotte music students. Bryce Harris (saxophone), Chelsea Karpeh (clarinet), Zykeia Whitted (soprano), and Bryn Patterson (saxophone) each performed one piece and were enthusiastically received into the organization as collegiate members of the Carol Brice Branch, the first UNC Charlotte students to be admitted.
Established in 1919, the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. is the country’s oldest organization dedicated to the preservation, encouragement, and advocacy of all genres of the music of African Americans. The state branch was founded in 2012 and is named after the renowned contralto Carol Brice (1918-1985), a native of Sedalia, NC.