It’s the premier of the beautiful Julian Price documentary, Envisioning Community, and the release party of the Asheville Sessions CD from the Asheville Symphony.
Food has been donated by popular Asheville restaurants – Chestnut, Zambra, Laughing Seed, Salsa and 67 Biltmore – and the Wedge Brewery’s Julian Price Pilsner will be available at the Orange Peel bar that night.
Asheville, like the rest of our country, faces many challenges. By finding ways to collaborate, as the documentary and the musician this night will celebrate, we make our circles bigger, and get to see what happens when we set aside our differences and work together.
As you likely know, Julian Price was a remarkable philanthropist and activist. He formed Public Interest Projects which turned abandoned downtown buildings into housing, helped establish small businesses and other innovations that helped make Asheville the vibrant place it is today. The Julian Price Project started as a way to remember Julian. Their mission: “To inspire civic engagement by showing how Julian helped make downtown more livable for everybody.”
In 2015, the Asheville Symphony embarked on a project with eight local bands and Echo Mountain Recording Studio. Representing a cross-section of the best local music groups, each band recorded a song and is backed by the symphony. The concept was conceived as a collaboration and cross-fertilization and the results are even better than hoped for. Echo Mountain has brought in nationally recognized arrangers who are excited to be part of the project and symphony members are now sitting in with area bands while area musicians are guesting with the symphony. The Asheville Sessions, the CD that resulted from this wonderful musical partnership, is already being called the soundtrack of Asheville.
At the same time, Erin Derham, historian and local documentary filmmaker, has been working on the Julian Price Project documentary, telling the story of one man and how he changed a community. Looking for music, she heard about the symphony project from her good friend and studio manager at Echo Mountain, Jessica Tomasin. Jessica knew a little about Julian and had worked at the Orange Peel in its early years. As the two women talked, it became obvious that there could not be better music for the film, and Echo Mountain and the musicians agreed to let the JPP Project use the music for the documentary.
The Envisioning Community Event on May 26th at the Orange Peel will combine the premiere of the Julian Price documentary with a celebration of the new Asheville Sessions CD and Asheville’s growing music scene. Three incredible local bands (Free Planet Radio with Lizz Wright, Doc Aquatic, and Matt Townsend) will take the stage that night with members of the symphony. Five of Asheville’s most popular downtown restaurants (Chestnut, Zambra, Laughing Seed, Salsa and 67 Biltmore) have donated food and the Wedge Brewery’s Julian Price Pilsner will be available at the Orange Peel bar that night.
Asheville’s strength is the diversity of talent it attracts. There is no one person or company or industry or organization or art that defines Asheville. Julian did not try to impose his own vision on Asheville and had no master plan. He helped people do good things. He listened and nurtured the passion in others – whether it was for creating green space, renovating an abandoned building, making delicious vegetarian food or publishing a local weekly newspaper. Julian changed people’s lives, and together, they changed the community. The work he inspired in Asheville has in turn inspired other people and other communities.
Tickets are available online www.theorangepeel.net or at the Orange Peel box office. Tickets are $25 and all ticket proceeds go to the Asheville Symphony to support local musicians and underwrite the cost of the CD. Doors open at 6:30 pm and the event begins at 7:30 pm.
The Facebook event page is located at https://www.facebook.com/events/1709696789243227.