Cynthia Burton, a 2007 graduate of Watauga High School, violinist, Kenan Scholar, and concertmaster for the UNC Symphony Orchestra, will offer a violin concert for her home community in Banner Elk and Boone. 

The dates are June 1 at 7 p.m. at Lees-McRae College's Evans Auditorium, located in the College Student Center in Banner Elk, and June 2 at 7 p.m. at Appalachian State University's Hayes School of Music Recital Hall in Boone.

She will perform works by Bartok, Bach, Saint-Saens and Beethoven. 

Burton grew up in Banner Elk and began studying the violin at the age of 3 with Nan Stricklen. In high school, she studied with Dr. Nancy Bargerstock of Appalachian State University and played both violin and viola in the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra.  She also performed with the Appalachian Chamber Orchestra in Austria and the Czech Republic in the summer of 2006. 

In 2007, she entered the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as a Kenan Music Scholar, where she now studies with Dr. Richard Luby. She was appointed principal second violin as a freshman and has served as concertmaster of the UNC Symphony Orchestra since 2008.

She has attended the International Music Academy Pilsen and studied with Stephen Shipps and David Updegraff. She has additionally studied with Jiři Fišer, Daniela Součková, and Leoš Čepický at IMAP and with Fabian Lopez at the UNC Violin Symposium. 

She recently won the senior division of the North Carolina American String Teachers Association Young Artist Competition and was the runner-up for the Greensboro Music Teachers Association Young Artists Scholarship Competition. 

She has performed with her quartet in master classes of the Degas Quartet, Arditti Quartet, and Borromeo String Quartet, and individually for Isidor Saslav, Anthony Dean Griffey, Benton Hess, Sherry Kloss, Kenneth Goldsmith, and Patinka Kopec.

There is no charge for the concert.  For those who wish, donations will be accepted toward Cindy's summer study in the Czech Republic.