As I told you in my opening salvo of festival posts, Millennium Music — Charleston’s biggest & best CD store over the past 15 years — will be closing its doors to the public at around the same time Spoleto strikes it’s tent: our last day will be Monday, June 9.

But we plan on going out in style — with a big store party, to say THANK YOU to Charleston for 15 great years. There’ll be free food, beverages, entertainment, the WORKS! It’ll kick off at 2:00 PM, Saturday, June 7 — and YOU’RE INVITED!

Yes, I said entertainment — and we’re still making final arrangements for some of that. But I want to tell you about the classical end of it. We’ve made LOTS of friends among the local highbrow music community over the years. Many of Chucktown’s finest classical artists and most talented students have performed right here in my classical room — and quite a few of our local music teachers have made Millennium their favorite student recital venue. Thus I had very little trouble recruiting some stellar talent to come perform for you.

Beginning at 2:00, you’ll hear an amazing young pianist named Micah McLaurin — whom I described last year as a musical “miracle” — and I meant it! This fabulously gifted young man — now thirteen — has been blowing listeners away, playing nearly hour-long classical recitals (stuff like complete Mozart sonatas — from memory!) here at Millennium since he was eleven. He recently came to the attention of distinguished pianist Enrique Graf (Artist-in-Residence at the College), who is now his teacher … and who will enter Micah in his first big international piano competition later this summer.

Several other major talents have jumped on board, too. Beginning shortly after 3:00, folks like Yuriy Bekker (the CSO’s distinguished Concertmaster) and CSO principal cello Louise Dubin will be here to play for you — along with a small host of other CSO notables, including the Kremers (violinist Asako and cellist Damien). There’ll be some others as well, like pianists Irina Pevzner & Susan McAdoo, plus soprano Mary Hubbell. There may be some late-breaking additional surprises — but trust me, you’ll dig ‘em all.

So please join us, and help us celebrate fifteen years of great shopping and service to our artistic community!