Calendar of Events

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

Experience cinema’s most iconic music performed by The New York Film Score Orchestra in a candle-lit setting.
An immersive tribute to Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Weber and many more. The most iconic movie music performed by a live chamber orchestra in an enchanting candle-lit setting under a glowing moon.

Venue: First Congregational Church, Asheville NC – The century-old venue houses an elegant sanctuary dominated by stone and red doors. A venue of purpose, history and elegance.

Saturday, July 29th
4:00pm, 6:00pm and 8:00pm

Doors open 1 hour before showtime

Start time: 4:00pm
End Time: 5:15pm

Please note, the advisory age for this event is 5+ (no children under 3)

Programme:

E.T
Phantom of The Opera
Twilight
Romeo & Juliet
The Wizard of Oz
The Greatest Showman
Les Miserables
Titanic
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Sound of Music
Mary Poppins
Fiddler on The Roof

Experience cinema’s most iconic music performed by The New York Film Score Orchestra in a candle-lit setting.
An immersive tribute to Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Weber and many more. The most iconic movie music performed by a live chamber orchestra in an enchanting candle-lit setting under a glowing moon.

Venue: First Congregational Church, Asheville NC – The century-old venue houses an elegant sanctuary dominated by stone and red doors. A venue of purpose, history and elegance.

Saturday, July 29th
4:00pm, 6:00pm and 8:00pm

Doors open 1 hour before showtime

Start time: 4:00pm
End Time: 5:15pm

Please note, the advisory age for this event is 5+ (no children under 3)

Programme:

E.T
Phantom of The Opera
Twilight
Romeo & Juliet
The Wizard of Oz
The Greatest Showman
Les Miserables
Titanic
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Sound of Music
Mary Poppins
Fiddler on The Roof

Experience performances by world renowned Vienna Light Orchestra as they play cinema’s most iconic music, surrounded by over 2,000 LED candles. An immersive tribute to Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Weber and many more. The most iconic movie music performed by a live chamber orchestra in an enchanting candle-lit setting under a glowing moon. “Immerse yourself in the captivating melodies of the Vienna Light Orchestra, where timeless classics blend seamlessly with contemporary arrangements. Join us for an enchanting evening of symphonic brilliance that transcends time.”

Vienna Light Orchestra is privileged to perform at the historic First Congregational Church in Asheville, NC – The century-old venue houses an elegant sanctuary dominated by stone and red doors. A venue of purpose, history and elegance. Step into the awe-inspiring sanctuary, where every whispered note reverberates with ethereal grace, as the divine acoustics transform each instrument into a symphony of celestial harmony.”

🕰 Date and Showtimes: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 4pm (sold out), 6pm & 8pm

🕰 Runtime: 70 Minutes (an easy addition to your evening plans!)

📌 Venue: First Congregational Church, 20 Oak St Asheville, NC 28801

Programme:

Pirates of the Caribbean
The Sound of Music
E.T
Phantom of The Opera
Twilight
Romeo & Juliet
The Wizard of Oz
The Greatest Showman
Les Miserables
Titanic
Mary Poppins
Fiddler on The Roof
… and More!

Highlights
🕯️ A spirited ambience bathed in magical candlelight.
🎼 Talented world-class orchestral musicians performing powerful favorites – Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom of the Opera, Hans Zimmer, John Williams…and MUCH more!
💃🏻 Performers are from the renowned Vienna Light Orchestra.
🏛 Stunning architectural intimacy awash in a parade of intimate candlelight and more.

Note: For the safety of our audience, all of the candlelight ambiance is provided through flameless candles.

Experience cinema’s most iconic music performed by The New York Film Score Orchestra in a candle-lit setting.
An immersive tribute to Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Weber and many more. The most iconic movie music performed by a live chamber orchestra in an enchanting candle-lit setting under a glowing moon.

Venue: First Congregational Church, Asheville NC – The century-old venue houses an elegant sanctuary dominated by stone and red doors. A venue of purpose, history and elegance.

Saturday, July 29th
4:00pm, 6:00pm and 8:00pm

Doors open 1 hour before showtime

Start time 8:00pm
End Time 9:15pm

Please note, the advisory age for this event is 5+ (no children under 3)

Programme:

E.T
Phantom of The Opera
Twilight
Romeo & Juliet
The Wizard of Oz
The Greatest Showman
Les Miserables
Titanic
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Sound of Music
Mary Poppins
Fiddler on The Roof

Silverado’s, located between Swannanoa and Black Mountain at 2898 U.S. 70, is hosting Family Movie Night under the stars every Monday night through August 21. Tickets are $5 per person, and are only available for purchase on the day of the movie. All movie nights are dependent on weather.

Bring your friends and family, and enjoy a blockbuster outdoor movie on a 24 foot screen. Concessions will be available for purchase. For more info, check the Events tab on the Silverado’s Facebook page.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

Follows conservationists throughout southern Appalachia as they struggle to manage two national forests in America: the Pisgah and Nantahala. Visit https://theriverrunson.com/ or www.highlandsbiological.org.

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian presents a film & concert event celebrating the citizens working to preserve, perpetuate, & learn Tsalagi.

Friday, August 4: Screening of “ᏓᏗᏬᏂᏏ (We Will Speak),” a feature-length documentary collaboration chronicling the efforts of Cherokee activists, artists, and educators fighting to save the Cherokee language. A Q&A with members of the film’s production team will follow the screening. Doors open at 6pm, screening begins at 7pm.

Saturday, August 5: Cherokee language concert featuring Cherokee Nation musicians who contributed to the groundbreaking 2022 compilation album Anvdvnelisgi (ᎠᏅᏛᏁᎵᏍᎩ). Doors open at 6pm, concert begins at 7pm.

Performers:

• Aaron Hale (Psychedelic Singer/Songwriter)
• Agalisiga Mackey (Country)
• Austin Markham (Pop)
• Colby Luper (Metal)
• Desi & Cody (Rock)
• IIA (Pop)
• Kalyn Fay (Folk/Americana)
• Medicine Horse (Metal)
• Monica Taylor (Folk/Americana)
• Ken Pomeroy (Alternative Folk)
• Travis Fite (Reggae)
• Zebadiah Nofire (Hip-Hop)

Join us for our monthly poetry reading series coordinated by Mildred Barya. This month, we welcome Jenny Bates, David Dixon, Kathy Cantley Ackerman, and Thomas Alan Holmes

This is a hybrid event with limited in-store seating and the option to attend online. The event is free but registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance. 

Please click here to register for the VIRTUAL event. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.

Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event. Note the important event details on the RSVP form.

All featured books will be available for purchase at the event. This event also includes a book signing.

If you would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, you may order a signed copy online below. To order Kathy Cantley Ackerman’s Repeat After Me, please call the store at (828) 254-6734.

If you would like to have your book personalized, please order online or call the store at least two hours before the start of the event. When ordering online, use the comments field to provide a name for personalization, e.g. “To Paul.” NOTE: We do our best to get books personalized when requested but personalization is not guaranteed.

If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

Jenny Bates is a member of Winston-Salem Writers, NC Poetry Society, and NC Writers Network. Where the Deer Sleep is Bates’ third book with Hermit Feathers Press following Slip (2020) and Visitations (2019). She’s published in numerous journals including Pinesong, Flying South, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and Old Mountain Press. Born and raised in Michigan, she now resides in the foothills of North Carolina.

Where the Deer Sleep is an inspiring call to reverence and wonder. To a place where “directions are not geographical.” To a time life can “go back to being a good dog.” To the church of cats and crows, stars and thunder, patience and grace – where the ordinary is divine. And miracle. I believe Jenny when she tells us she sits with toads – and listens. These poems make no pretense of being the High-Priestess of anything. Instead, they stand quietly by the entrance, bulletin in hand – inviting us in. You will be glad you did.

—

David Dixon is a physician, poet, and musician who lives and practices in Mount Airy. He is the medical director of Surry Medical Ministries, a free clinic in the area. He has played in several regional bands and remains active in local music. His written work has appeared in Rock & Sling, The Northern Virginia Review, Connecticut River Review, FlyingSouth, The Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of The Scattering of Saints (Hermit Feathers Press, 2022).

David Dixon whirls readers through languages of faith, illness, love, loss; lives of apostles, pets, poets, and trees. These poems are a search for what remains and what illuminates when all the lights go out and we’re left to find our way home in the dark, hoping there is a home. Dixon troubles us with all the pesky questions: how to die? how to live? How to bind? Every poem a sign. Each line a constellation.

—

Kathy Cantley Ackerman was born in coal country West Virginia, grew up in Ohio, and has lived in the Carolinas nearly 40 years.  She has published three poetry chapbooks and three full-length collections, most recently Repeat after Me. Her 2019 collection, A Quarrel of Atoms, received the Lena Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. Ackerman serves as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Isothermal Community College in Spindale and lives on a loblolly farm in Polk County.

How hard it is to keep what lives alive. Kathy Ackerman brings it all to life: love, loss and the fear of loss, revelations about what’s become essential and what no longer is. These poems are ordinary days like the ones we all must hack a path through, but when we look back and consider the way we’ve come an unexpected clarity fills us. Everything ordinary is extraordinary. Repeat after me: so it is with love that lasts, tender and perennial / tender and vulnerable.

—

Thomas Alan Holmes, a member of the East Tennessee State University faculty, teaches American literature with specialties in Appalachian and Black American literature. His creative and scholarly work has appeared in such journals as Valparaiso Poetry Review, Appalachian Journal, The North American Review, and Still: The Journal. Iris Press published In the Backhoe’s Shadow, Holmes’ first poetry collection, in 2022.

In the Backhoe’s Shadow celebrates the bonds of family in a time of rapid change. The poems display extraordinarily precise, photographic details of work and memory, childhood games and pets, sad country songs. Some are poems of dailiness and humor, and the legacy of a certain time and place. Holmes is a gifted storyteller of the struggle with contemporary uncertainties, of deep kinship, of love.

—

Mildred Kiconco Barya is a writer and poet. She has written short-stories and essays for various publications, features and travel articles for newspapers. Her first collection of poetry titled: Men Love Chocolates But They Don’t Say won the National Award for poetry publication 2002. She is also the author of the poetry collections The Price of Memory and Give Me Room to Move My Feet. Barya is Assistant professor of Creative Writing and World Literature at University of North Carolina-Asheville. Learn more at http://mildredbarya.com/.

Silverado’s, located between Swannanoa and Black Mountain at 2898 U.S. 70, is hosting Family Movie Night under the stars every Monday night through August 21. Tickets are $5 per person, and are only available for purchase on the day of the movie. All movie nights are dependent on weather.

Bring your friends and family, and enjoy a blockbuster outdoor movie on a 24 foot screen. Concessions will be available for purchase. For more info, check the Events tab on the Silverado’s Facebook page.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

👉 Asheville Parks & Recreation Rec n Roll Fun Zone activities start an hour before showtime with games, giveaways, and other activities for kids and teens.

.: MAKE A PLAN :.
📍 All movies are free and begin at dusk in Pack Square Park on 80 Court Plaza in downtown Asheville. Approximate showtimes are listed, but plan to arrive at least 15 minutes prior. Bring blankets and folding chairs for comfort.
📍 Asheville Parks & Recreation Rec n Roll Fun Zone activities start an hour before showtime.
📍 Bring money for food and treats from local vendors. Smokee’s Pizza is scheduled for opening night on May 12 while Tin Can Pizzeria is scheduled for the remaining dates. Kona Ice of Asheville and Kernel Mike’s World Famous Kettle Corn will be available at all dates.
📍 Free parking is available in marked spaces on city streets and in city-owned lots on Marjorie Street after 6pm.
📍 Pets, smoking, and alcohol are prohibited.
📍 Have fun! Dress up as your favorite characters, invite friends, and celebrate cool summer nights.

Movies in the Park allows people to enjoy blockbusters on the big screen with a spectacular backdrop – Asheville City Hall’s art decor exterior flanked by the rising mountains and a night sky full of stars. As Asheville’s town square, Pack Square Park’s central location allows community members in nearby neighborhoods including East End, Montford, South French Broad, and Southside to easily walk, bike, or ride to the show. Free parking in downtown after 6pm makes it a low-cost night out for those traveling from further away.

Silverado’s, located between Swannanoa and Black Mountain at 2898 U.S. 70, is hosting Family Movie Night under the stars every Monday night through August 21. Tickets are $5 per person, and are only available for purchase on the day of the movie. All movie nights are dependent on weather.

Bring your friends and family, and enjoy a blockbuster outdoor movie on a 24 foot screen. Concessions will be available for purchase. For more info, check the Events tab on the Silverado’s Facebook page.

Get together for a screening of Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (PG)
Free. Recommended for middle and high school-age students.
Questions? Call the library at 828-250-4738.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

Ben, a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he’s not managing an arthouse movie theater as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices, and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.

Tickets for the August 19, 1:15 screening of SHORTCOMING will be available on the Grail website in the coming week. Advance tickets are recommended. We’ll Meetup at Grail at 1:00. As always, we will gather at Wedge Brewery next door for post-screening conversation.

The last of our 3 Fringe Summer Nights will have pop up performances, Asheville Fringe announcements, cold beverages and weirdo camaraderie. Join us!
Featuring:
Strange Daughters Butoh
The Accidentals
Justin Evans

Donations go to artists. Donate to Asheville Fringe at https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?donation=afs

Silverado’s, located between Swannanoa and Black Mountain at 2898 U.S. 70, is hosting Family Movie Night under the stars every Monday night through August 21. Tickets are $5 per person, and are only available for purchase on the day of the movie. All movie nights are dependent on weather.

Bring your friends and family, and enjoy a blockbuster outdoor movie on a 24 foot screen. Concessions will be available for purchase. For more info, check the Events tab on the Silverado’s Facebook page.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

The Friends of the Black Mountain Library and the White Horse Black Mountain join with filmmaker Carolyn Crowder for a local showing of her feature length documentary At the River: Struggle and Grace in the Segregated South on Sunday, August 27 at 3 PM. Carolyn, a Black Mountain resident, grew up in the segregated Deep South in a racist family and culture. Later in life she learned of a few young southern Presbyterian ministers took a stand against segregation through their sermons, community organizing and participation in marches and protests. They faced dangerous, hate-filled consequences for these actions. Carolyn wondered why they dared. To find out she travelled throughout the Southeast interviewing ministers, now in their 80’s and 90’s, and family members about their experiences and what it took to go against the racist currents within their local communities and congregations.
At The River chronicles their lives and their decisions, as well as director Carolyn Crowder’s first-hand experience as a young white southern girl from Montgomery, Alabama. During those mean and turbulent times these ministers, through their love and example, had a huge impact on her life in helping her overcome her southern racist brainwashing.

The Friends of the Black Mountain Library and the White Horse join with filmmaker Carolyn Crowder for a local showing of her feature length documentary At The River: Struggle and Grace in the Segregated South on Sunday, August 27 at 3 PM.

At The River is a feature length documentary about a certain time and place in the deep south. In the Civil Rights era of the 50’s and 60’s most Presbyterian ministers stood on the banks of the cultural river of segregation and white supremacy. They opted not to stir the waters in their congregations and communities by speaking out. However, a few young southern Presbyterian ministers did brave those currents through their sermons, community organizing and participating in marches and protests. They faced dangerous, hate-filled consequences for these actions.

At The River chronicles their lives and their decisions, as well as director Carolyn Crowder’s first-hand experience as a young white southern girl from Montgomery, Alabama. During those mean and turbulent times these ministers, through their love and example, had a huge impact on her life in helping her overcome her southern racist brainwashing.

Director’s Statement:

I fled the south and lived 40 years out west and found that many people were skeptical about my stories of the young ministers who challenged my racial cultural brainwashing. When I moved back to the south several years ago, I realized that I lived in an area surrounded by Presbyterian ministers who had “fought the good fight” during the Civil Rights Era. Most of them had never told their stories in public and in many cases their grown children did not even know what they had been through. These men were modest and unpretentious about their strong stands during those hard times.

This is a story told from my perspective as white southerner who grew up in a racist family and culture with limited exposure to the suffering and inequalities around me. What started out as a small oral history project interviewing the ministers I knew as a teenager, grew into this feature length documentary. We traveled extensively throughout the southeast, interviewing over 60 ministers and family members, amassing over 100 hours of material.

As a psychologist I’ve always been interested in early memories and how they impact later behavior. So I asked these men about when they realized as children that what they were being taught about race was wrong.

The music in the film consists of old Presbyterian Scottish and English hymns mostly from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries – the music that the ministers and I grew up with. These traditional hymns provide historical context, setting the mood and giving the film emotional depth.

It was a disgraceful chapter in (Southern) Presbyterian Church history. This movie is a document, however, of those white ministers who tried to do the right thing when the right thing was difficult and dangerous to do. Their modeling changed me and other teenagers who were watching.

DIRECTOR:

Carolyn Crowder, Ph.D. is a retired psychologist who specialized in parent education and published three parenting books, one of which was a NY Times national bestseller. She appeared on Today, 20/20, Dateline, and NPR.

She has produced three documentaries: SISTER DON’T WEEP is an art piece about being raised Southern and female; SOMEWHERE TO LAY MY HEAD is about the history of a Southern Black community in rural Arizona, as told by the elders; and, RUBY, an exploration of the life of Ruby Prevo who worked for the Crowder family for over 20 years.

PRODUCER, CAMERA, EDITOR:

Rod Murphy has won 14 awards for his first three documentary features, including Best of Fest, Best Documentary, and Audience Award. He directs and produces video for commercial and non-profit clients, including Outward Bound, American Express, New Belgium Brewing, Habitat for Humanity, and Industries for the Blind. His work has screened internationally at festivals and on cable. Website: Collective Projects

MUSIC DIRECTOR

Aaron Price has been making music in Asheville since 1997. He played in the Appalachian State University jazz band and began writing songs. After college Aaron moved to Asheville where he opened Collapsible Recording Studio. He has directed music for numerous regional musical theater productions and serves as Music Director at Black Mountain Presbyterian Church.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FILM

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

Have You Got It Yet?
The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
For Immediate Release: A new documentary explores the mystery of
what happened to the founder and leader of one of rock music/s most
legendary bands. A special September 11 one-night screening as part
of the Music Movie Mondays series at Grail Moviehouse will be hosted
by Asheville speaker, author, music journalist and Pink Floyd authority
Bill Kopp.
When Pink Floyd released their debut single, 1967’s “Arnold Layne,” it
marked the beginning of a momentous chapter in music. The song
showcased not only the psychedelic quality of the four-man group from
Cambridge and London, but the songwriting prowess and unique vision of the
band’s leader, Syd Barrett.
Guitarist and front man Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett was a promising artist,
creating unique songs that both captured the zeitgeist of the burgeoning
psychedelic movement and captured a particular kind of English whimsy, informed as much by poetry and fantasy as by
LSD. The band’s first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn featured a bounty of songs that displayed Barrett’s unique
and inimitable musical vision.
But little more than nine months after that album’s release, Barrett was gone from the group he had founded. Save for two
erratic and deeply idiosyncratic solo albums and a handful of unfinished recordings, that would be the last the world would
hear from the uniquely creative songwriter and musician. Completely leaving music behind, he went on to live a quiet life
in Cambridge, finally passing away in 2006, nearly 40 years after leaving (or being dismissed from) Pink Floyd.
What happened? Did Syd suffer a mental breakdown? Did he succumb to the effects of too many LSD trips? Did he
simply want to step out of the machinery of the music business? Or is the real story some combination of all of those
things and more? Until now, Syd’s life has been the subject of speculation and conjecture. But with the cooperation of
Barrett’s family and former band mates, director Roddy Bogawa explores the fascinating mystery that is the life and music
of Syd Barrett.
Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd is a new authorized documentary that digs deep into
the mystery that is Syd Barrett. As part of the Music Movie Mondays series, Grail Moviehouse in Asheville hosts a special
one-night-only showing of the film. Presented by Asheville-based speaker, author and music journalist Bill Kopp (author of
Reinventing Pink Floyd: From Syd Barrett to The Dark Side of the Moon) the evening will include a screening of the film
followed by an interactive discussion.

Hosted by author, speaker and music journalist Bill Kopp,
the evening will feature a screening of the film followed by
an interactive discussion. Have You Got It Yet? is the latest
in Grail Moviehouse’s popular series, Music Movie
Mondays.

“Going to the movies has always been a kind of communal experience,” says Kopp, host of
Music Movie Mondays. “Especially in this post-lockdown era, the opportunity to not only watch
a film but then to discuss it with others is something even more special. And music-related
films lend themselves remarkably well to this shared, interactive experience.”
Music Movie Mondays is sponsored by AshevilleFM. Hosted by Asheville-based author and music journalist Bill Kopp,
Grail Moviehouse presents a special screening of Have You Got It Yet? on Monday, Sep. 11 @ 7 pm. Sponsored by
AshevilleFM, the evening will feature a brief introduction. Then we’ll watch the film together; afterward, we’ll engage in a
moderated discussion.
The one-night-only screening of Have you Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd is the latest in the
ongoing popular series of Music Movie Mondays at Grail Moviehouse. Every month, we’ll watch and discuss new
releases, classics and cult favorites.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.

Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the
longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at
Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.