Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.

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Sunday, February 4, 2018
St. John in the Wilderness Concert
Feb 4 @ 3:30 pm

On Sunday, February 4, the Friends of Music at St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock will present a concert of music from Mozart to My Fair Lady. The concert celebrates the completion of the church’s new Parish Hall and the donation of a Yamaha Grand Piano. It will be held in the new Parish Hall beginning at 3:30 p.m.

The program will include Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 414, played by St. John Organist and Director of Music, Dewitt Tipton, along with members of the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra. Greenville professional singers Danielle Knox, soprano, Grant Knox, tenor, and Adrian Smith, bass-baritone, will sing opera arias and the final trio from Gounod’s Faust. They also will sing excerpts from My Fair Lady joined by the St. John Parish Choir.

Admission is free; however, donations will be gratefully accepted. For more information, call (828) 693-9783 or visit www.stjohnflatrock.org.

Sunday, February 18, 2018
Pianoforte
Feb 18 @ 3:00 pm

Pianoforte with Deborah Belcher and Members of the Asheville Wind Quartet

For the event, Belcher will perform solo works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Liszt, and will be joined by members of the Asheville Wind Quintet for chamber music by Robert Schumann and Beethoven. This varied program spans the emotional scale from lyricism through drama to rollicking virtuosity.

The Core Ensemble Presents: Of Ebony Embers
Feb 18 @ 7:30 pm
Kittredge Theatre

A chamber music theatre work for actor and trio (cello, piano & percussion) celebrating the lives of the great African-American poets, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay as seen through the eyes of the great muralist and painter Aaron Douglas. Text is by Akin Babatunde.The musical score includes works by jazz giants Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Billy Strayhorn, Thelonius Monk and Charles Mingus as well as concert music by Jeffrey Mumford and George Walker.

Friday, February 23, 2018
The Tesla Quartet at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Feb 23 @ 7:00 pm
The Tesla Quartet at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Join us as the Tesla Quartet performs a rarely heard composition by Hugo Kaulder, originally performed at Black Mountain College’s Summer Institute of 1945. Praised for their “superb capacity to find the inner heart of everything they play, regardless of era, style, or technical demand” (The International Review of Music), the Tesla Quartet brings refinement and prowess to both new and established repertoire. The group was formed at The Juilliard School in 2008 and includes Ross Snyder (violin), Michelle Lie (violin), Edwin Kaplan (viola), and Serafim Smigelskiy (cello). This special program is presented in collaboration with Hugo Kauder Society. Kauder was a composer-in-residence at BMC in the summer of 1945. The program will include Kauder’s String Quartet 4, a piece performed at BMC in 1945, as well as Bartok’s String Quartet 3 and transcriptions of works by Gesualdo and Ravel by Tesla violinist Ross Snyder.In the 1930’s and 40’s Black Mountain College was a haven for many European refugee intellectuals and artists displaced by the rise of Nazi Germany. After a fruitful period in Vienna, Hugo Kauder fled Austria for Holland in 1938, then settled in the United States in 1940. He rebuilt his own life with the help of a vital network of refugee musicians, including a core group that made up the Black Mountain College music faculty in the 1940’s. Presumably Kauder first met Heinrich Jalowetz in Vienna in the 1920’s. Jalowetz was a central figure in Arnold Schoenberg’s circle of pupils and colleagues, and he and Kauder shared common ancestral roots. (Jalowetz was also born in Moravia, about 45 miles from Kauder’s birthplace, Tobitschau) During his short time in Holland, Kauder befriended musicologist Edward Lowinsky, who wrote an insightful and passionate essay on Kauder’s music in 1946.

The Black Mountain College Summer Institutes in art and music began in 1944. The Second Music Institute in 1945 was devoted to the study of polyphony and ensemble playing. According to the college’s own press release, “The Gordon String Quartet performed the Quartets No. 4 and No. 7 of Hugo Kauder, who was invited to the Music Institute as resident composer, and as a representative of a contemporary polyphonic style. Among the works of Hugo Kauder performed during the Music Institute were a sonata for violin and piano, songs, choruses, a horn sonata, and a trio for oboe, horn, and piano.” Other participants and performers included Erwin Bodky (harpsichord/piano), Emanuel Zeitlin (violin), Josef Marx (oboe), Eva Heinitz (viola da gamba/cello), Gertrude Straus (violin), and Willem Valkenier (horn). Many of Kauder’s works for horn were inspired by and dedicated to Valkenier. They had been close friends since meeting and working together in Vienna before 1920.

The Tesla Quartet’s goal is to reconnect and establish Kauder’s legacy as part of the ongoing rediscovery of the artists and work associated with the legendary Black Mountain College.

About BMCM+AC

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College. We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs. The museum is open Monday and Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00–5:00 p.m. Admission is by donation. www.blackmountaincollege.org.

About Black Mountain College
Legendary even in its own time, Black Mountain College attracted and created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th century. A partial list includes Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Susan Weil, Vera B. Williams, Ben Shahn, Ruth Asawa, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, M.C. Richards, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Dorothea Rockburne and many others who have made an impact on the world in a significant way. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of Black Mountain College continues to reverberate. 

Saturday, March 3, 2018
2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Yekwon Sunwoo
Mar 3 @ 8:00 pm

Saturday, March 3, 2018 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 4, 2018 at 3:00 p.m.

Edvard Tchivzhel, conductor
Yekwon Sunwoo, Gold Medal Winner of the Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3, op. 30, D minor
Brahms: Symphony No. 4, op. 98, E minor

A new star is born!  The suspense builds as we await the Greenville debut of the Gold Medal Winner of the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Yekwon Sunwoo.  Mr. Sunwoo will thrill audiences with his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, and the concert comes to a grand finish with Brahms’ heartfelt and passionate Fourth Symphony.

Thursday, March 29, 2018
Jazz Hour at Pack
Mar 29 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
67 Haywood St.

Phone: (828) 250-4718
Email: [email protected]
Event Type: Performance
Age Group: Teen – (grades 6-12),Adult
Library: Pack Memorial
Location: 67 Haywood St. – Asheville

Jazz Hour at Pack presents “Michael Jefry Stevens & Friends.”

Musicians are Jason Moore on Saxophone, Kevin Kehrberg on bass, Brian Palmieri on drums, and Michael Jefry Stevens on Steinway Piano.

Program is free and held in our auditorium downstairs.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.

Thursday, April 5, 2018
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month
Apr 5 @ 5:00 pm – 11:59 am
MG Road Bar & Lounge
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month @ MG Road Bar & Lounge | Asheville | North Carolina | United States

Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month is underway, and MG Road is joining the party! From April 5 to May 5, the Asheville lounge is whipping up their own version of the classic cocktail – dubbed the MG Julep – composed of Olmeca Altos Reposado tequila, coriander, ginger and lime zest syrup, all served over crushed ice and garnished with fresh cilantro. Bottoms up!

Friday, April 6, 2018
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month
Apr 6 @ 5:00 pm – 10:01 pm
MG Road Bar & Lounge
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month @ MG Road Bar & Lounge | Asheville | North Carolina | United States

Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month is underway, and MG Road is joining the party! From April 5 to May 5, the Asheville lounge is whipping up their own version of the classic cocktail – dubbed the MG Julep – composed of Olmeca Altos Reposado tequila, coriander, ginger and lime zest syrup, all served over crushed ice and garnished with fresh cilantro. Bottoms up!

Saturday, April 7, 2018
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month
Apr 7 @ 5:00 pm – 10:01 pm
MG Road Bar & Lounge
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month @ MG Road Bar & Lounge | Asheville | North Carolina | United States

Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month is underway, and MG Road is joining the party! From April 5 to May 5, the Asheville lounge is whipping up their own version of the classic cocktail – dubbed the MG Julep – composed of Olmeca Altos Reposado tequila, coriander, ginger and lime zest syrup, all served over crushed ice and garnished with fresh cilantro. Bottoms up!

Sunday, April 8, 2018
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month
Apr 8 @ 5:00 pm – 10:01 pm
MG Road Bar & Lounge
MG Road Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month @ MG Road Bar & Lounge | Asheville | North Carolina | United States

Garden & Gun’s Mint Julep Month is underway, and MG Road is joining the party! From April 5 to May 5, the Asheville lounge is whipping up their own version of the classic cocktail – dubbed the MG Julep – composed of Olmeca Altos Reposado tequila, coriander, ginger and lime zest syrup, all served over crushed ice and garnished with fresh cilantro. Bottoms up!