It's one of those Myers Park homes whose ground floor has room enough to double as a mini-concert hall. In the foyer, a violinist, cellist and pianist are driving toward the lusty finish of a Johannes Brahms concerto.

At the last flourish, guests seated throughout the front rooms burst into applause. As the musicians finish their bows, one of the hosts dashes up to the piano. He's all but shaking with excitement.

"This," Wilton Connor exclaims, "is the way music should be heard!"

He has a big finish of his own: Already, he says, one of the guests has promised $1,000 to the Charlotte Symphony.

Wilton and Catherine Connor have hosted around 50 of these musicale-fundraisers over the past 15 years or so. The dollars and camaraderie have flowed to an array of cultural groups. Yet these shindigs represent only a fraction of the time and energy the Connors put into the arts in Charlotte.

Even if you've never attended one of the soirees, you're probably aware of the hosts. They must be the most-mentioned arts backers in town.

In honor of a donation they made a decade ago to WDAV, announcers tell radio audiences many times a day that the music emanates "from the Catherine and Wilton Connor Broadcast Booth" at the station in Davidson. Much of what they've done is less publicized - and more personal than writing a check.

Wilton used connections in the Latino community to help WDAV promote "Concierto," a classical-music program in Spanish. Catherine, an accountant, helped Opera Carolina revamp its financial controls after money was mishandled. Wilton spearheaded a dinner-and-concert package for a concert series at Queens University of Charlotte.

Other arts backers - notably those behind some six- and seven-figure donations over the past year - have given out more cash. But there may be none whose support takes so many forms. About all they don't do is go on stage.

"We're not artists ourselves," Catherine says. "But... I think we're influenced by the creativity around us.

"Friendships develop and opportunities develop. It just makes life richer and more interesting."

'The best parties in town'

The two have been near performers practically all their lives. Wilton, a Charlotte native, is the stepson of Harvey Woodruff, a voice teacher and a music minister at Myers Park Baptist Church. "There was always wonderful music in the house," he recalls.

Catherine, raised in Maryland, got hooked on the stage during high school. At N.C. State, where she earned an accounting degree, theater "was the only thing that got me through college."

Afterward, she launched an accounting practice in Baltimore. That's where she met Wilton, who worked for a corporation that produced packaging materials for retailers.

They shared an appetite for the arts. Neighbors in Wilton's condo had connections to Baltimore's Peabody Institute, one of the country's most prestigious music schools.

"Four or five times a season, (the neighbors) would invite professors or students from Peabody... to perform in their home on Sunday afternoons," Catherine recalls. "Every so often, we were part of that. We thought, 'How cool is this?'"

They married and came to Charlotte in 1983. Wilton went to work for Western Craft, another packaging company.

In a three-year span, the couple had three children. After working with cultural groups in Baltimore, Catherine wanted to be active here, too. There was time to volunteer for one group. She settled on the Symphony Guild of Charlotte - operator, then as now, of a popular annual show house.

"The symphony had the best parties of anybody in town," Catherine recalls. "Working as hard as we did, and with children, we needed that."

'Let's buy a washer'

The workload grew dramatically in 1989, when Wilton started his own business.

It filled a niche that came along with the rise of Wal-Mart and other mega-retailers. Their size, Wilton says, gave them the power to buy merchandise when they needed it, not when the makers wanted to push it. For manufacturers, that was a problem. What should they do with their batteries or light bulbs until retailers wanted them?

"That was an opportunity for a company to say, 'I'll manage your inventory. And I'll take away all the headaches from you,'" Wilton says.

He launched Wilton Connor Packaging, with Catherine handling the books. They had experience with their respective parts of the business, Catherine says, but not with managing a staff that grew into the hundreds. They learned as they went.

Many employees worked in jobs with modest pay - maybe $5 an hour, Catherine recalls. The couple asked themselves: Would that be a good $5 or a lousy $5?

They aimed for the good $5. That involved more than just salary.

"We were doing our children's laundry and watching '60 Minutes' one night," Wilton says, "and I commented to Catherine that we were lucky to have a washer and dryer in our home. Because there were people who worked for us who had to get on the bus and go to a Laundromat.

"She said, 'Well, we still have some credit on our Sears credit card. Let's go buy a washer and dryer and put it in the plant.'"

That expanded to the point the company put in industrial washers and dryers and hired a staff to run them. The nearly 1,000 employees could bring in their laundry and get it back washed, dried and folded. There were handymen whose job was to do minor repairs at employees' homes to save the workers' taking time off. Because many employees spoke only Spanish, the company brought in instructors to teach English.

"There has never been an employer who has looked after their employees any better than Wilton did," says Wayne Cooper, Mexico's honorary consul in Charlotte. Cooper, who has held the post for 29 years, says he first heard of the Connors through "the stories people would come into my office and tell." "I would hear about the enormous work they did," Cooper says. "They became famous in the Latino community." Beyond the Latino world, he adds, national media spotlighted the company's programs.

Wilton puts it this way:

"The end result," he says, "was that we had no turnover and no quality problems."

'Wilton goes forward'

As the company grew, sales approached $100 million a year. Yet the couple could never relax, Wilton says. Losing a customer might be a calamity.

When did the Connors think the company was secure?

"The day we sold it," Wilton says, laughing.

That was 2002. The Weyerhaeuser manufacturing conglomerate, which had taken a stake in the company in 1998, bought the rest.

Wilton describes himself as retired, but that's a technicality. An example: After taking an interest in Friends of Music at Queens, he masterminded a dinner-and-concert deal. For $45, buyers got a sit-down dinner, an introductory talk on the music, a concert ticket and a post-concert reception. He has been hands-on to the point of enlisting lecturers.

During one talk, Queens professor Paul Nitsch detoured from the music to describe how Connor gets things done.

"Wilton goes forward," Nitsch said, "and the rest of us move in the vortex."

'Rolled up her sleeves'

Supporting the arts isn't always a party.

Catherine was on Opera Carolina's board in 2006, when evidence arose that a staffer had stolen money. Insurance covered the loss. But Opera Carolina saw it had to improve its financial controls, general director James Meena says. Catherine helped devise new checks and balances.

"Sometimes, volunteers, when they're put in a situation like that, head for the exit," Meena says. "But she didn't. She rolled up her sleeves and did what had to get done."

Opera Carolina came out stronger, Catherine says. But in the precarious world of the arts, there's no guarantee that efforts will pay off.

When Moving Poets Theatre of Dance was trying to build support a few years ago, the Connors pledged a $10,000 matching grant to lure donors. But money remained tight, and the company shut down. The Connors also were boosters of Epic Arts Repertory Theatre, which folded after financial and other difficulties.

"We've stuck our necks out sometimes," Catherine says, "and sometimes the organizations have flourished, and sometimes they haven't, for many reasons. But I don't think there was anything we threw ourselves into that we were disappointed with. Just being around that creative spark is fascinating."

The creativity they see onstage is what draws the Connors to a group in the first place, Catherine says.

"It's the quality of the product," she says, "that encourages us. ... If it's mediocre, we just won't bother."

Relationships count

It's a few minutes before the start of a Charlotte Symphony concert in the Belk Theater. As the Connors move toward their seats, Wilton steps down a couple of rows to greet friends near one end of the Grand Tier. Then he sees others.

As he finally starts toward his seat, he looks around and exclaims:

"I know everybody here!"

Relationships are important to him. His dinner-and-concert package at Queens, Wilton says, aims at more than selling tickets.

"The underlying principle," he says, "is that it builds community."

During the dinners and concerts, he says, music lovers bond with each other and the organization. If someone eventually asks them to make a donation, they're more likely to see the value and say yes.

The couple's belief in that bond means "we've never been particularly fond of united fund drives in any form," Catherine says. They think the umbrella group comes between the artists and their supporters. And some of the money, Wilton says, always stops with the middle man.

'It's like a hobby'

In their home, the Connors work to build that community one soiree at a time.

The guests at the Brahms evening range from Charlotte Symphony players and board members to music lovers and out-of-town visitors. After the performance, everyone pounces on a buffet. The spread includes egg salad whose main ingredient comes from Wilton's own chickens.

"Wilton and I have gotten to the point that we don't even use a caterer anymore," Catherine says. "We make (the food) ourselves, which is really fun. It's like a hobby."

As the food and drink gradually disappear, Catherine teases trombonist Thomas Burge about being "under-dressed" - he's wearing shorts - and he strokes her cheek affectionately in response. Chatting with other players, Wilton has a news update: In the wake of that $1,000 donation, a few more guests have promised to write checks.

Wilton gets excited anew about the music that launched the evening. As he listened, he says, he got so wrapped up that he could barely keep quiet.

"I wanted to get up," he says, "and yell, 'Yahooooo!'"