Elizabeth City
October 22, 2025
Presenter: Downtown Elizabeth City
Venue: Seven Sounds Brewing Company
Population: 18,740
Demographics: 49% Black, 37% White, 8% Hispanic
15% below poverty line
The third day of Gather Hear North Carolina brought us to the easternmost destination of this tour, Elizabeth City. Elizabeth City sits at the mouth of the Pasquotank River which spits into the Albemarle Sound. It is a significant location for shipping, and houses a U.S. Coast Guard base. The Great Dismal Swamp Canal also converges at Elizabeth City, which was an important route for runaway slaves traveling north on the Underground Railroad. The treacherous, massive Great Dismal Swamp was a critical place of refuge for both runaway slaves and indigenous people escaping colonial settlers, as well as a strategic military location for the Union Army during the Civil War. As we drove east on Route 17, endless fields of cotton came into sight, full and ready for harvest. The thousands, millions of dancing white puffs filled me with wonder, while also stabbing pins into my heart, the plant itself innocent but forever bound in shackles by its monstrous historical associations. Chris quietly shared, “Looking at cotton is tough for me.”
Our partner for the concert was Elizabeth City Downtown, part of the Main Street America network which I’ve loved working with in the past (see: Marion, Alabama and Skowhegan, Maine). I asked our collaborator Debbie to select a venue, and I was so excited when she told me that it would be Seven Sounds Brewing Company! Although Gather Hear has performed in dive bars and a cidery, I’d never performed in a craft brewery despite having approached several in the past.
Seven Sounds was beyond my expectations. First of all, the place was gorgeous, decorated industrial-chic but warm and inviting, with rich dark colored woodtop tables and antique furniture. There was a large patio overlooking the river, with almost beachy vibes. We set up in the back party room area, where inside could become an intimate listening area, but its garage doors opened up to the lively fire pit and food truck area of the lively patio. During the concert, we had a small but dedicated group of listeners sitting inside the room with us. Others stood at the periphery and came and went, free to engage with as little or as much of our music as they felt like. Then, the large crowd outside the garage door (mostly consisting of visiting Coast Guard young men) rowdily enjoyed their evening, completely oblivious to the “serious” event happening inside. I love playing in settings like this - it feels like classical music is alive in a real-life context and not being “performed” in a sterile, pristine environment.
I held off from trying Seven Sound’s beers before the concert, since the Rachmaninoff Sonata is extremely challenging and I barely have enough brain capacity to get through it without any alcohol in my body. When I finished performing the 25-minute work, crowd whooping, I jokingly muttered into the mic “NOW I need a drink,” to which a nearby audience immediately responded to by buying us beers! We all had a good chuckle as Chris rejoined me for the remainder of the program.
with Jenn and Chuck, in my new Seven Sounds hoodie
One of the greatest privileges of Gather Hear Tour is getting to meet the most incredible humans, ones that are contributing so much to their local community and economy, who love music, who love helping people, who are full of steely optimism, who empathize so much with the Gather Hear mission. The owners of the brewery, Jenn and Chuck, were those people, and I fell head over heels in love with them, even shedding a tear as we drove away at the end of the evening. They reminded me of other people I’ve fallen in love with over the life of Gather Hear, Megan in Alaska, Jim in West Virginia, Marguerite in Alabama. The constellation across the nation of people like these, and their small businesses/organizations, is what makes this country a better place for everyone.
Some other favorite moments:
The food truck owner, who had been working in the truck all night, telling us how much he enjoyed the music from his post as he treated us to delicious burritos
The next morning, we visited a great used-book store in town. Turns out the owners were at our concert. The wife enthusiastically spoke to Chris about his rap/poetry, and she shared how as an “older white woman” (her words), she hadn’t thought she resonated with rap in the past but was so excited by our concert experience that she went home and looked up rap artists late last night.