Ensemble founder Millard Burt dies
By Staff and Wire
Published in News on August 8, 2008 1:38 PM
Dr. Millard P. Burt, a founding director of the former Mount Olive Community Instrumental Ensemble, has died.
The Ensemble, which existed from 1991 until a couple of years ago, began as a group of volunteer musicians who gathered at First Methodist Church in Mount Olive to play for worship and pleasure. Burt helped organize it into an ensemble that attracted up to 40 musicians at one time..
Burt was faithful in his weekly visits to Wayne County from Raleigh, where he lived before moving to Apex, said Dr. Barbara Kornegay, who served as the group's executive director.
Kornegay knew Burt when she was a student and he was an instructor at North Carolina State University. Several years after she graduated with a doctorate of education, he came to visit, and that was the night "I dragged him to the rehearsal," she said.
"He was a great professional and he was a perfectionist as a musician," she says. "He demanded precision. He would drill and drill and drill. That's what it takes to be good as a group."
He is survived by his wife, Katrina, two children, two step-children, a sister, a brother, seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, at First United Methodist Church in Cary. .
Visitation will be held from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12, at Brown Wynne Funeral Home, 200 SE Maynard Road in Cary. The family requests that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the Amran Shriners Hospital Fund-Burt, P.O. Box 30246, Raleigh, N.C. 27622.