Madame Lili Kraus, Burnsville, NC 1978.
The Asheville area has always been a bastion for the Arts. From writers—Charles Frazier, Thomas Wolfe, and O. Henry—to musicians—Robert Moog, Warren Haynes, and Doug Wallin—to visual artists—Will Henry Stevens, George Masa, and Julyan Davis—and many, many more—Asheville has produced or attracted a plethora of incredible artists.
One of the more amazing, but little known, artists, a musician I had never heard of, was Madame Lili Kraus, who lived her last few years in Burnsville and died in Asheville in 1986. Kraus was considered the foremost interpreter of Mozart during her career. She was born in Budapest in 1903 and studied in Vienna and Berlin before beginning an international touring and teaching career. While playing in Java at the beginning of World War II, she and her family were incarcerated by the Japanese and held in concentration camps until the end of the war. She resumed her career after that, playing thousands of concerts around the world and recording over a hundred albums. She eventually settled in Fort Worth, Texas, where she became the long-term artist in residence at Texas Christian University.
In addition to her musicianship, Kraus was also fluent in seven languages, a formidable athlete, and a fierce lover of life. I thank Martha Abshire, the founder and publisher of the Asheville Arts Journal, for sending me to Kraus’s farm outside of Burnsville, where I spent an afternoon walking in her gardens and receiving a private concert from the master.