The “SAY THEIR NAMES” display at The Oak Street Gallery lists the names of more than 60 Black Americans killed by police officers and the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

Music.

It brings us all together. 

Today, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the bipartisan Save Our Stages Act. We need you to contact your elected representatives through SaveOurStages.com asking them to support this bill.

The Save Our Stages Act provides Small Business Administration grants for independent venues, promoters, and festivals affected by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. These grants offer at least six months of financial support to keep us afloat, pay employees, and preserve a critical economic sector and our ecosystem for communities across America.

Through SaveOurStages.com, more than 1 million emails have been sent letting all 538 members of Congress know that constituents want to keep independent venues, promoters, and festivals alive.

Please help us and continue to push. 

Call, Email, Write, Shout!  

Help us to get the Save Our Stages and RESTART Acts passed.

PLEASE CLICK BELOW NOW 

to contact your legislators and help #SaveOurStages

www.SaveOurStages.com

This link will automatically populate with your Senators and Congressional Representative based on your zipcode.

Thank you so very much for your continued support!

Keith talks about his fondness for the music of Antonín Dvořák and about his relationship with the Czech Philharmonic. As he notes, Dvořák is as important and symbolic to the Czech Republic as Gershwin is to the United States. The central piece for discussion is Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” and the featured recording is of Václav Neumann conducting the Czech Philharmonic in a live performance from 1993.

Video of the Week

SCHUBERT Schlachtlied, Op. 151
STEPHENSON Taps for Bill
Performed by the BMC Alumni Trombone Choir
Recorded live on July 26, 2016,
at the Porter Center in Brevard, NC.

Find locations around Buncombe County working hard to feed our community.

FOR STUDENTS: text FOODNC to 877-877 to locate nearby free meal sites. The texting service is also available in Spanish by texting COMIDA to 877-877.

View meal sites by geographical area, day of the week, and/or service type offered.

 If you’ve ever considered adding a feline companion into your family, now is the perfect time to adopt. Blue Ridge Humane Society has discounted the regular cat adoption fee to $25, down from the regular $75 for the immediate future due to a high number of cats and kittens waiting for adoption from the organization. Studies have shown that owning a pet significantly cuts down on an owner’s stress and anxiety. Having a pet in your life drastically improves your overall mental and physical health.

“This time of year, animal shelters, including Blue Ridge Humane, are flooded with cats,” says Angela Prodrick, Executive Director of Blue Ridge Humane. “Choosing to adopt a cat now not only rescues that cat’s life, but also opens space for us to take in more kittens that are so desperately in need of homes.” Karla Pan, Adoption Center Director adds “Cats are always their authentic selves, offer sincere company, and love without limits. We can all use more of this right about now, so Blue Ridge Humane Society has reduced our adoption fees to make it easier to welcome a new cat into your home.”

To view animals currently waiting for adoption, visit https://www.blueridgehumane.org/adopt/. Blue Ridge Humane also provides an animal request form in the case that there isn’t a match currently available.

All adoptions are currently following the contact-free and digital adoption procedure implemented by Blue Ridge Humane in May. The new procedure includes adoption counseling from Blue Ridge Humane staff, a contact-free or virtual meet and greet between a potential adopter and the animal they are interested in, as well as a contact-free animal pick-up after completing the required paperwork and payment digitally. After finding an animal they are interested in, the adopter can fill out the application form on the Blue Ridge Humane website under Adopt, and staff will be in touch with more information about the animal and the next steps.

The Blue Ridge Humane Society, Inc., is a 501(c)3 animal welfare organization started in 1950 dedicated to ensuring the highest quality of life for animals in Henderson County and our neighboring communities. BRHS cares for pets awaiting adoption at the Adoption Center; offers low-cost vaccine clinics, animal education programs, pet training classes, and youth education and projects; coordinates community pet food assistance, emergency vet assistance, and the Spay Neuter Incentive Program (SNIP), which is a collaboration with Henderson County, the City of Hendersonville, and the Henderson County Animal Services Center.

If you believe in our cause, consider making a donation or learning how to volunteer by visiting the Blue Ridge Humane Society’s website at www.blueridgehumane.org or call (828) 692-2639.

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We are a new initiative that is aiming to change and enhance our WNC classroom libraries at our local schools to be more reflective of ALL children. We call ourselves a Colorful Pages Coalition.
We want our Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous children to see themselves positively reflected in the books and stories they read every day at school. 
Colorful Pages Coalition is working to make this happen in all local schools, beginning in first-grade classrooms.

SCHUBERT Schlachtlied, Op. 151, arr. Glenn P. Smith
STEPHENSON Taps for Bill
BMC Alumni Trombone Choir
Recorded live on July 26, 2016,
at the Porter Center in Brevard, NC.

DEBUSSY Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp III. Finale
Dilshad Posnock, flute • Jenny Snyder Kozoroz, viola
Allegra Lilly, harp
Recorded live on July 18, 2018,
at the Porter Center in Brevard, NC.

Selected past performances by BMC orchestras, faculty, and guest artists on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Open Air Brevard.

https://masks.com/pages/the-great-american-mask-drive-by-masks-com?fbclid=IwAR0AR-vhz0_JXmFMEKFZS-3sNE1PldWPahS7LK-uPP4QtvyIXAvJzuEvOB8

Buncombe County Public Libraries have free wifi hotspots available outside any library building. To use the wifi, look for the LibraryGuest network and use the password readmore. The wifi is available all day every day, whether the library is open or not. Please observe all Buncombe County social distancing and gathering requirements while using the wifi. Questions? Call (828) 250-4700 or email [email protected].

As an advocate for the arts in our community, Haywood County Arts Council develops partnerships with schools, other nonprofits, county governments, schools, city revitalization boards, economic development councils, chambers of commerce, and tourism bureaus. These partnerships are often the catalyst for sustainable economic and community development using the arts and can lead to programs that connect diverse parts of the county through shared arts experiences.

With the assistance and support of the North Carolina Arts Council, the Haywood County Arts Council (HCAC) has an important role in sustaining, growing, and advocating for the arts in Haywood County. The HCAC is a Designated County Partner (DCP) for the North Carolina Arts Council, and administers the Grassroots Arts Program subgrant process as well as the Artist Support Grant for Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Polk, Rutherford, and Transylvania Counties.

The Battery Park end of the Grove Arcade is home to the Makers Market, an outdoor bazaar with a dozen stalls filled by artisans selling their craft directly to the public. The market is now accepting vendor applications for local artist to sell their wares, and the application fee is currently waived due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Learn more about the process and vendor regulations, as well as how to apply, here.

Miss browsing the library’s shelves? Let us help with Bookfix. Call or email your local library to have a librarian put together a bundle of books tailored to your specific interests. You can pick up your personal Bookfix bundle at our curbside hold pickup service. Our Ask a Librarian line is available Monday-Saturday at (828) 250-4700 or you can email [email protected].

From NCDHHS

If you are a renter in North Carolina facing eviction due to COVID-19 economic impacts, there may be resources available to you.

Rental and Utility Assistance

If you were unable to pay your rent and/or utilities due to COVID-19 or its economic impacts, you may qualify for assistance. Call NC 2-1-1 to learn of resources in your community for emergency needs, including rental and utility assistance.

What:  Local musicians, singers, callers, and technicians have given us joy as they shared their love of music and dance with us.  We now ask our community to return that joy as they struggle financially during this difficult time by donating to our “Spread the Joy” fundraiser.

Who:  All donations will be paid directly and equally to local talent.  Your contributions will support local callers, musicians, and technicians who participated, a minimum of 4 times, either in the past year (March 2019 – March 2020) or were scheduled in the near future (March – June 2020) for OFB events and who indicated a financial need to the OFB Board.

When:  The OFB will distribute donations on a regular basis while dances continue to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so please give early and often. Consider donating the price you would have paid for admission to the dances for you, maybe several friends, and remembering that the dances were cancelled back in early March.

How:  Click the link below to donate via Paypal and please add the note: “Spread the Joy fundraiser”. Donate conveniently via your credit card, debit card or your Paypal account.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PYS3WHNV76CWA&source=url

For the month of July, genealogists and historians can access the popular Ancestry.com database from home for free. All you need is a library card.

Among the billions of records available, Ancestry.com includes census records and indexes, vital, church, military, public member trees; birth, marriage and death records; tax, criminal, land and wills stories, memories and histories, pictures, city directories, immigration and travel schools, maps and more. There are records from the United States as well as international records, so no matter where your family might be from, you will probably be able locate them in the Ancestry database.

Find a new branch of your family tree with Ancestry. Visit the library website at buncombecounty.org/library and use the Virtual Library tab to access Ancestry. If you don’t have a library card, email us at [email protected] and we can give you a card by email. Call 828-250-4700 with any questions.

Roots + Wings Creative Community

“What Motivates People from Dominant Groups to Support Social Justice” Diane J. Goodman and Lee Anne Bell

“The Costs of Racism to White People” by Paul Kivel

Seeing White Series from Scene On Radio, a 14-part documentary series exploring whiteness in America.

Slavery By Another Name, PBS Documentary

White Awake Manual — a set of educational resources for guiding white affinity processes

What is Shop & Dine HC?

Shop & Dine HC is a collaborative movement designed to remind the public of the benefits and importance of spending their dollars with our local businesses. Local businesses lay the framework for a strong community and we want Henderson County to shop local, spend local, save local.

Why does shopping locally matter?

When you shop locally:

• $0.02 of every $1 stays in the community through the Sales Tax. These dollars support county and municipal budgets for schools, law enforcement, infrastructure, and more.
• you help create and retain jobs for existing businesses as they succeed and grow, and create a successful business community that attracts other businesses and entrepreneurs.
• those same businesses you are supporting will give back to our community through donations to non-profits, civic clubs, youth programs, and more.

Simply put – our local businesses make our community better.

Want to get involved?

Be part of the conversation!

Join the Shop & Dine Facebook Group

Shop to Win!

When shopping in Henderson County:

• take a selfie, post it to Facebook or Instagram
• use the #ShopandDineHC
• tag the Chamber @hendersoncochamber and business visited
• be entered to win bi-monthly contests.

Contests begin July 1, 2020.

Around The Web w/ BMC

Live-streamed performances, resources, and activities we love from around the web, updated weekly.

Explore Space
With NASA at Home
Bring the universe into your home with virtual tours, family activities, podcasts, and more!

How to Understand
The Circle of Fifths
How is the Circle of Fifths used in music composition? Mark Newman uses visuals to help explain!

Tap-Dancing Noses At
The Royal Opera House
Don’t miss this scene from Shostakovich’s surreal and vibrant first opera, featuring tap-dancing noses.