Macon Magazine

46 maconmagazine.com | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 CENTER FINDS GREAT SUCCESS Amy and Robert McDuffie, the renowned violin virtuoso and founder-namesake of the center, initially dreamed of it as a premier regional center of study. It quickly surpassed regional status, becoming world-class. "I'm from North Carolina and Robert is from Macon," Amy said. "We often talked about how we had to go elsewhere to study. We dreamed of creating a place in the South where students could study at a very high level — and now just look — students are coming from all over the world then going out all over the world creating successful careers and great music. "A former student now teaching in Sweden sent one of their students to us this year. That's a first and it's so exciting. All the right pieces came into place to make the McDuffie Center what we hoped it would be and we're firing on all cylinders. This is our 15th year and the learning never stops." Amy said dramatic things have happened through the years, such as the center making the historic Bell House its home, but such advances only add to the satisfaction of seeing quality students seek out the program, Mercer and Macon. "I can brag that they leave with full-ride scholarships to long-established graduate programs at places like Yale and Juilliard," she said. "And I think of what our students are doing, like our former student who founded the Hawaii Chamber Music Festival and another who is concertmaster of the Alabama Symphony." Chris Yick is the student who, as a McDuffie Center sophomore, founded the summer Hawaii Chamber Music Festival in his hometown of Honolulu. He is a member of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra and in a graduate program studying double bass at the Manhattan School of Music on full scholarship. "I was inspired by the things Robert McDuffie and Amy have done musically and in the community — the many transformative things that they've done," he said. "I was

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