Intro to Ukulele with Melissa McKinney – Students will receive a solid foundation in beginner Ukulele skills for vocalists. Chords, Rhythm patterns, and basic theory will be introduced through songs with an uplifting message. Students will also learn to play the song that the Songwriting Class will be writing and get to record it in the One Mic Studio.

*Dates/times subject to change – interested in attending this class but unsure if it works with your schedule, or if it suits your student’s skill level? Reach out to us at [email protected]! We are always looking to adapt and expand our class schedules to accommodate new students!

Get moving in this fun, high-energy dance class focusing on Broadway-style choreography. Lay the foundation of jazz technique through warm ups and across the floor, and practice picking up steps and style in theatre dance combinations inspired by a variety of musicals. Join us to get a weekly workout, learn how to fill your movement with character, and step into your next dance audition feeling confident. Masks are required. 

Instructor: Anna Kimmell

Notes: To ensure the safety of our students and staff, we require that all participants and faculty wear masks during indoor classes.

For over two decades, Grammy^® Award-winning master trumpeter and composer Chris Botti has amassed a spectacular variety of honors, including multiple Gold and Platinum albums, to become the largest selling instrumental artist in the United States. His success has led to a broad audience, including those typically reserved for pop music. His ongoing association with PBS has led to four #1 jazz albums, five Grammy nominations for his album Impressions, which won Best Pop Instrumental Album in 2012.

In addition to his solo work, Botti is a prolific collaborator. He has recorded and performed with a stunning array of legends such as Sting, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Yo-Yo Ma, Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon, and Andrea Bocelli. Some of them are featured on his latest disc, which puts his uniquely expressive sound and soaring musical imagination at the center.

With Impressions and the albums that preceded it, Botti has established himself as one of the important, innovative figures in the contemporary music world.

Official Website

Jeff Sipe Trio is a compelling example of the endless possibilities of the improvising trio. “That the power of the melody comes through matters more than anything to me,” reflects drummer, composer, and bandleader Jeff Sipe. His selfless dedication to the song at hand – to elevating it, enriching it, and propelling it – is why Sipe has long been considered a leading light in a vital, unique musical landscape that expands to encompass elements of jazz, rock, country, and funk. It’s a landscape he helped to create over his three-decade career, and one he brings to life here with guitarists Mike Seal and Taylor Lee.

WORTHAM CENTER PRESENTS

Ephrat Asherie Dance presents Odeon

MATINEE SERIES FOR STUDENTS AND FAMILIES

Ephrat Asherie Dance

Option 1:  Classic Rock for acoustic guitar

Join beloved Polk County musician Woody Cowan and learn YOUR favorite tunes.  In this setting, the students pick the songs, and Woody leads the teaching.  This friendly class is full of peer-to-peer encouragement and collaboration.  Artists covered included Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Old Crow Medicine Show, & Grateful Dead.  Whether you know a lot of chords or just a couple, this class will move you forward musically while taking you back through the best era of radio-played folk music.

Option 2: Beginner/Intermediate Folk Jam

World-class musician Gaye Johnson leads this class, gently raising your comfort level to play freely in a group setting.  Rooted in traditional folk music, aspiring mandolin, and guitar students will join together to gain more comfort and self-assurance in a group setting, while also diving into rhythm techniques and ornamentations.

Option 3: Intermediate/ advanced band

Bob and Amy Buckingham guide adults on all instruments (guitar, clawhammer banjo, fiddle, mandolin, ukulele, & bass).  Several songs are picked by the group at the start of the semester, and over the 10 week semester, the musicality and “setlist” grow exponentially.  Adults love this format for
guided jamming.

Wednesday 

 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

All beginning students receive 45 minutes of group instruction and 45 minutes of singing/storytelling.

Group song & story:  Gaye Johnson (known for having the sweetest voice in the region) gives students the strong foundation they need for learning an instrument.  To learn music most effectively, students must know the songs before they play them on an instrument – then the learning becomes intuitive.  This fun class equips students with the classic songs and stories of the region and helps launch their musical abilities.

Instrument options:

Age ranges are suggestions.  Please email Julie if your child is outside the age range for the class they wish to take.

Option 1: Beginning ukulele, ages 6-8

Option 2:  Instrument Survey, ages 8-14

Continuing from last semester, this instrument survey class will focus on clawhammer banjo, plus one additional instrument to be chosen by the students.

Option 3:  Beginning guitar, ages 8-14

Option 4: Beginner mandolin ages 8-14

Option 5: Beginner fiddle ages 8-14

*Please be sure to select the student’s 1st and 2nc\d instrument choices when registering.

Wednesdays 

4:30 pm-6:00pm

All students with some experience under their belt will take an intermediate or advanced group instrument class, and a band class.

• 4:30-5:15 

Jam Band: Phil Jenkins & Carson Moore help young musicians find their voice in a band environment.

• 5:15 – 6:00

Option 1: Intermediate Guitar

Option 2: Intermediate Fiddle

Option 3: Intermediate Mandolin

Option 4: Three-finger banjo- all levels

Clover Pickers: 4:00- 6:00

PacJAM’s house band gets rigorous coaching this semester from Emily Wait and special guest coaches.  Clover Pickers will spend 5 weeks of the semester practicing their teaching skills from 4-4:45 weekly, and 5 weeks working on choosing and arranging songs for Clover Picker performance.  Band rehearsal and coaching last from 4:45-6 for all 10 weeks.  Clover Pickers band is by invitation and the commitment requires extra rehearsals as determined by the group.

While participating in the Lights program, students can develop their songwriting, performing, and musicianship skills while exploring music from around the world. They will have extensive performance opportunities with a focus on music that inspires, uplifts, and spreads a music of unity and hope. Students will record their music in the One Mic studio and learn about the music industry and explore topics such as audio engineering, stage presence, graphic design, videography, website development and more while learning to use their music to be a force for change. Advanced students will have the opportunity to work towards touring locally and regionally with the Lights concert tour. They will also have the opportunity to regularly interact with and learn from LEAF resident artists. Students will be exposed to music from a diverse range of genres and cultures. Students will have the opportunity to see how music connects us on a deep level and how it can create joy, bring people together, and instigate change. LEAF lights will lift young leaders and give them a platform to make a difference in the lives of others.

Wednesdays at 5pm (Junior Group) & 6pm (Senior Group) at LEAF Global Experience (19 Eagle St, Asheville, NC, 28801)

Dates/times subject to change – interested in attending this class but unsure if it works with your schedule, or if it suits your student’s skill level? Reach out to us at [email protected]! We are always looking to adapt and expand our class schedules to accommodate new students!

Join us for a glass of wine, a light snack and a very special conversation regarding the international music scene with Kenyan performer-educator Emily Achieng’ Akuno.  She is a Professor of Music at the Technical University of Kenya. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Kingston University, Surrey, UK, a Master of Music of the Northwestern State University, Louisiana, USA and Bachelor of Education (Arts) of Kenyatta University, Kenya. She is President of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) – a UNESCO affiliate with members in over eighty (80) countries.

She has successfully supervised and mentored over 30 postgraduate students both Doctoral and Masters degree levels. Trained as a performer-educator, Prof. Achieng’ Akuno is actively involved in the music and music education scene in Kenya and internationally. An astute researcher currently working on a music for literacy development project, she is widely published and read with over 40 academic works in refereed journals, books and conference proceedings. Her academic engagements and contributions include the development over the years many music curricula for Universities and middle level colleges across nations, presentations at and facilitation of local and international conferences seminars and workshops in music and arts education and practice.

As a professional, she is a member of the International Society for Music Education (ISME), where she has served as a board Member, Interim Secretary General and as member and Chair of the organisation’s Music in the School and Teacher Education Commission (MISTEC). She is also Treasurer of the International Music Council, the Paris-based UNESCO-affiliated NGO umbrella organisation of worldwide music organisations and bodies. Further, she serves in the Steering Committee of the International Network for Research in Arts Education, INRAE.

Masks are strongly recommended at this event, and there will be plenty of room for comfortable distancing

Praised for their “intensity and bravado” and the “cohesion and intonation one might expect from an ensemble twice their age,” the Callisto Quartet brings together four dedicated and passionate musicians who share a love for chamber music and a desire for excellence. Since their formation in 2016 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the quartet has quickly garnered top prizes in nearly every major international chamber music competition and praise from audiences across North America and Europe. Grand prize winners of the 2018 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and Second Prize Winners of the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Callisto Quartet has also taken home prizes from the Bordeaux (2019), Melbourne (2018) and Wigmore Hall (2018) competitions.

The Callisto Quartet members are committed to continually broadening their musical horizons by drawing inspiration from diverse mentors and musical approaches. To that end, they have worked with renowned artists, including violinist Gidon Kremer, cellist David Geringas, and more! Driven by a desire to share their insights with younger students and bring music to their communities, the quartet serves as faculty at numerous schools and festivals, including the Greenville Fine Arts Center. Additionally, the ensemble has held residencies around the world at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and the prestigious Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain.

Official Website

WORTHAM CENTER PRESENTS

Ephrat Asherie Dance presents Odeon

All Ages – under 12 requires venue approval

Had everything gone according to plan, Marie Ulven — a.k.a. intimate rock/pop sensation girl in red — would’ve spent the vast majority of 2020 playing for new crowds, in new venues, and taking in new landscapes as she drove from city to city on tour. But the COVID-19 pandemic upended all of that, and so she found herself grounded, at home in Oslo, and revisiting the familiar skeletons of songs she’d begun to sketch out the year before.

She wrote and demoed 11 songs at home, and soon she was borrowing her father’s car to make the eight-hour trek from the Norwegian capital city to Bergen, a city nestled between majestic fjords in an inlet off the North Sea, to record if i could make it go quiet, her debut album out April 30th, 2021. Consider if i could make it go quiet the musical distillation of Ulven’s solitary conversations on the road: it’s an album brimming with the things we wish we could say to others, but tell ourselves instead.

Thursday – June 9 Use code CANNIBALORANGE Code valid 3/10 10am – 10pm

Cannibal Corpse at The Orange Peel on Jun 9, 2022 7:00 PM (etix.com)

Tuesday – May 17 Use code INTHISPEEL Code valid 3/10 10am – 10pm

Thursday – October 20 Use code OPMORBY Code valid 3/10 10am – 10pm

at Rabbit Rabbit – 75 Coxe Ave Friday – June 10 Use code MARENMAREN Code valid 3/10 10am – 10pm

All Ages

RAIN OR SHINE

at Rabbit Rabbit – 75 Coxe Ave Sunday – June 19 Use code MTRABBIT Code valid 3/10 10am – 10pm

Friday – May 13 Use code POLISHORANGE Code valid 3/10 10am – 10pm

• 

  An All-Ages Hip Hop Dance class led by LEAF  Schools & Streets Master Teaching Artist Otto (Aquaboogy) Vazquez. Get up and get your body moving every Thursday at LEAF Global Experience, with this great family-friendly, fun class!

  Weekly on Thursdays from 2:00 – 3:00pm at LEAF Global Experience (19 Eagle St, Asheville, NC, 28801)

Queer Music Exploration with Kayla Lynn – Students will explore guitar, bass, drums, singing and piano with a focus on learning music by artists from the LGBTQ+ community. Students will have the chance to interact with their peers and share their experiences through music

A symphonic tribute to the Fab Four with arrangements by Grammy-winner Jeff Tyzik and rare photos and images from the Beatles’ official fan magazine.

The phenomenon known as Sublime, arguably the most energetic, original and uniquely eclectic band to emerge from any scene, anywhere, ended with the untimely death of lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Brad Nowell in May of 1996. But encompassing the sense of place and purpose long associated with Sublime’s music, Badfish, a
Tribute to Sublime continues to channel the spirit of Sublime with a fury not felt for some time. What separates
Badfish from other tribute bands is that they have replicated Sublime’s essence, developing a scene and dedicated following most commonly reserved for label- driven, mainstream acts. Badfish make their mark on the audience by playing with the spirit of Sublime. They perform not as Sublime would have, or did, but as Badfish does!

Sacramento songwriter Tré Burt’s sophomore album, You, Yeah, You, is a narrated collection of songs featuring a cast of invented characters; heroes, villains, those destitute of salvation and those seeking it. The plots merge for an ultimate reckoning with the archetypal mother of these songs on the final track, “Tell Mary”, “say what you want, it’s alright child / little’s left behind / beating the drum at the wrong time / look at what you’ve done.” Like a bruised fighter, Burt goes 12 rounds in the ring against a shapeshifting and seemingly otherworldly opponent. The album represents a summoning of will to fight the unknown rather than surrender to fear and fatigue. Like his late label mate and songwriting hero John Prine, Burt showcases his poet’s eye for detail, surgeon’s sense of narrative precision and his songwriters’ ability to transpose observation into affecting verse. You, Yeah, You is a cohesive body of work that illustrates the ever expanding space in which Tré Burt’s voice belongs.

From his humble roots working menial day jobs; as a maintenance technician, servicing airplanes at SFO International, taping boxes as a UPS worker, Burt has been, and always will be, a working class musician. His clear-eyed vision of America, it’s deep faults and the beauty of the humanity that resides within its borders, comes through with compassion and tenacity.

Tré wrote his protest anthem, “Under The Devil’s Knee”, in 2020 which features Allison Russell, Sunny War and Leyla McCalla, in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner and the unmitigated police violence across the country. His work caught the attention of scholars and activists, namely Dr. George Yancy, Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Khalil Muhammad, and garnered an invitation to speak on a panel with the latter two at Harvard’s Kennedy School through Dr. Muhammad’s Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project.

Burt finds the exported packaging of Black culture en masse tiresome, claustrophobic and boring, especially when applied to art and expression. Like literary writers Baldwin and Angelou, Burt acknowledges the limitless expanse of Black narrative. He is committed to the rich continuum of the tradition of Black expression claiming the space of artistic weirdness, often reserved for non-Black artists.

Tré Burt teamed up with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Nathaniel Rateliff) to produce and collaborate on his sophomore album. Brad’s brother Phil Cook (Megafaun, The Guitar Heels), label-mate Kelsey Waldon and Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath all appear throughout the 12 songs on You, Yeah You.

On the first single, “Sweet Misery”, the album title acts as an appeal and a call to action; “You, Yeah You / who else am I talking to”. Burt speaks both to himself and the listener, conjuring a fighter’s scrappy disposition. The protagonist fights his shapeshifting opponent in the form of Misery, a foe whose shadow has cast darker and harder to ignore in the past year. “There is something kinda beautiful about people who are experiencing tragedy in chorus” Burt says. In this collective tragedy he recognizes the bedrock to build something new, a deepened understanding of oneself in relation to community and a well of compassion. “Sweet Misery you can follow me down to the end of my path but you still gotta go through me” Burt sings, reminding us that we too are the fighters who can hold our own in the ring against Misery.

On the album’s second single “By The Jasmine”; Burt presents a portrait of a young man taking a moonlit walk through downtown Sacramento. Tré interpolates his own experience of depression through the reckoning of Danté’s complex emotional universe. Danté, a young man afflicted by the realities of his own existence, in a country that seeks to destroy him. “This song is anecdotal following an incident where I was surrounded by police officers called by a white woman while minding my own business, in my own neighborhood” says Burt. Danté awakes from the freedom of his own dreams into the horrifying nightmarish reality of a sickly America. “He coulda used a little more time in his dreams”, Burt sings at the beginning and ending of “By The Jasmine”, expressing the desire for respite from the omnipresent threat colonizing his daily life. “It’s a tale in America that goes back far beyond the days of Emmit Till”.

Burt brought label-mate Kelsey Waldon to sing on “Dixie Red, his ode to the late John Prine, whose influence runs deep throughout their songwriting. The song is a treasure trove of imagery from Prine’s storied catalogue. Speaking to the allegory, Burt says that “‘Dixie Red’ is a southern grown peach and that line from Spanish Pipedream has always been so potent to me. So I used a peach as imagery to represent John’s body of work he left behind for all of us.”. Burt wrote the song after Prine’s death this past year, including the lines “Boundless in the evergreen waters / Gently down the stream / Green River knows you as its father” a nod to Prine’s “Paradise” and his final resting place in the Green River in Kentucky’s Muhlenberg County. It’s a fittingly reverential ode to the immensity of Prine’s songwriting and legacy.

“Carnival Mirror” is a song for disaffected youth weary from the tired ideals of the American dream, “For cryin out loud, I just want out / no I can’t take it anymore / this carnival mirror got everybody feelin’ sick / there’s no winners, there’s no losers / just life and its abuser / leave no trace and give no reason why / cruel by design” Despite the inherent violence of a plutocratic system that empowers the privileged and sedates the rest of us, Burt offers a hopeful alternative, “You know I’d rather live off the goodwill of strangers / and let my hair grow wild and wide / than have the shadow of money crossing over me / wherever I go I feel it under my eyes”

Burt traveled to Durham, North Carolina, to record You, Yeah, You in a single week between Sounds Pure Studios and Brad Cook’s home studio Puff City. Burt and Cook assembled a cast of heavy hitting players including Brad himself on bass and synths, Phil Cook on keys and harmonica, Alex Farrar on guitar, Matt McCaughan on drums, percussions, modular synth and Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath (I Can Not Care, Ransom Blues, Tell Mary) and Kelsey Waldon (Dixie Red) on backing vocals.On You, Yeah, You, Burt demonstrates his innate ability to process exceedingly personal experiences and transpose them into songs whose ubiquitous stories resonate clearly.

JOULES SATYR (SEA OF BEES)

Joules lives in Sacramento Ca, wasn’t brought up with a ton of music. Dabbled with drums around 15 and fiddled with the guitar their older brother bought them. In early 20s started a band named Sea of Bees.

Founded in 2016, The Spartanburg Philharmonic Percussion Ensemble is made up of longtime friends and colleagues. Some of the members have performed together for almost 30 years, beginning with their Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps days.

Currently, the core percussion section for the Spartanburg Philharmonic, Patrick Lowery, Kevin Maloney, Kevin Mavis, Adena McDaniel, Matthew McDaniel, and Veronica Weygandt make up the ensemble. When not on stage together, these percussionists perform throughout the Upstate of South Carolina and teach musicians of all ages.

The ensemble’s repertoire spans genres, historical periods, and timbres to bring exciting concerts of both melodic beauty and pulse-quickening rhythms. One audience member writes, “Having never been to this type of concert before, we had no idea what to expect. We were absolutely blown away by the amazing talent and expertise of this group.