For internationally acclaimed lyrical soprano Jacquelyn Culpepper, an upcoming performance at Lake Junaluska will be more than just another concert stop in a storied career that taken her to recital halls across the United States, South America, Europe and Asia.

It also will be a homecoming for a professional performer who got her start here in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Culpepper, featured guest artist at the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado for the past 13 years, will take center stage at Lake Junaluska’s Stuart Auditorium at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2. A former artist-in-residence at Haywood Community College and currently a member of the music faculty at Davidson College, she will perform as part of the 40th Annual Lake Junaluska Associates Weekend, set for Aug. 1-3.

Culpepper’s program will feature two distinct segments — one focusing on popular selections from Broadway’s songbook, including tunes by Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Frederick Loewe and Stephen Sondheim; the other offering a variety of sacred music ranging from traditional American spirituals to Swedish folk melodies.

“This concert is a rare and wonderful opportunity for residents of Western North Carolina to be able to see and hear in person a truly talented vocalist who also is one of our own,” said Marie Metcalf, Junaluska Associates vice president for programs. “Jacque Culpepper’s story is proof positive to today’s young people that, with talent and dedication, you can go anywhere you want to go in your career, even if you are from a small town.”

The list of Culpepper’s mentors during her formative years reads like a veritable “Who’s Who in Western North Carolina Music” — from first voice teacher Betty Lou Hubbard and piano teachers Madeleine Kendrick and Eleanor Hazell, through the encouragement of legendary Tuscola High School band director Jim Crocker, to Western Carolina University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in music in 1979 with professors Joyce Farwell and Richard Trevarthan.

“One morning in the early 1970s, my mom took me to the home of Dr. Joyce Farwell in Cullowhee and said, ‘I don’t know if she has any talent, but she will sing on a park bench,’” Culpepper said. “Years later, I’m still singing and have found park benches all over the world.”

Trevarthan, who taught Culpepper music theory at Western and who conducted a Waynesville ensemble in which she performed, said he recognized her talent early on. “I conducted, she sang and, oh heavens, she did a beautiful job,” he said. “Of course, that was small potatoes compared to what she has done since, but she was already a star when she was in college.”

Upon completing her degree at WCU, Culpepper went on to obtain her master’s degree in musical performance and literature at Baylor University, then moved to New York City to begin a performing career that has included national PBS broadcasts of “An Evening with Cole Porter” and “Salute to Masterpiece Theatre.”

Prior to leaving WNC’s mountains for the Big Apple in 1983, she performed a “farewell concert” at Lake Junaluska’s Stuart Auditorium. “Twenty-five years later, it feels I have come full circle,” Culpepper said.

She has performed 85 roles in opera and oratorio, and solo concert tours worldwide during her quarter-of-a-century career. Highlights include a recital in Belgium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Europe and the end of World War II, and performances in such prestigious venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Atlanta’s Symphony Hall.

But before she began collecting all those “frequent flyer” miles, Culpepper was developing a deep appreciation for music at her home in Haywood County. “In looking back, I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to have grown up in a place where there always seemed to be tremendous support for the arts and for young people,” she said. “We were encouraged to go for all life had to offer.”

Culpepper said she is often asked during her travels what led to a career in lyrical performance for a young woman hailing from a rural place that many folks might suspect would lead not to the opera, but to the Grand Ole Opry. She considers it merely a matter of graduation of form.

“The mountains of Western North Carolina are full of culture, and the people in the mountains appreciate and are proud of their land, their way of life and their art. My grandparents sang by shaped notes and my parents were in a gospel quartet. There was always music in our home, our church and our schools,” she said. “To let that music graduate to more complex forms such as opera and classical music felt very natural.”

She especially points to the influence of Crocker, the Tuscola band director who became a father figure to her after her own father died in an automobile accident. “Mr. Crocker constantly reminded me to be true to myself. He told me I could be a singer, but he wanted me to be a musician first,” she said. “Through his legendary band program, he taught many of us discipline and principals that manifest daily in our lives.”

After her August return to Lake Junaluska, Culpepper will continue her world-traveling ways, appearing again at the Breckenridge Music Festival before journeying to Taipei in Taiwan to perform, teach and direct in the American Performing Arts Academy.

She will be accompanied by pianist Dewitt Tipton, an Asheville native and founder of the Asheville Symphony Orchestra Chorus, which he has directed for 17 years. Admission to the performance is $10, and tickets will be available in advance by calling Helen King at 828.454.6725 or via e-mail at associates@lakejunaluska.org. Tickets also may be purchased at the door.