Calendar of Events
Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.
Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.
Sigal Music Museum’s current special exhibition, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred, highlights items from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, which hails from all over the world. Showing November 2023 – May 2024, Worlds Apart uses a diverse range of historical instruments, objects, and visuals to bring together musical narratives from seemingly disparate parts of the globe.
Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred aims to increase public access to historical instruments from around the world and improve visitors’ understanding of musical traditions at the global level. Expanding beyond the typical parameters of the Western musical canon, Worlds Apart seeks to expose audiences to musical instruments and customs that are often overlooked or exotified. The instruments and other exhibit materials will offer visitors new perspectives on global music and a chance to consider how music is used for prayer and leisure in cultures around the world. By celebrating these stories, the museum intends to further its mission to collect and preserve historical musical instruments, objects, and information, which engage and enrich people of all ages through exhibits, performances, and experiential programs.
Displaying various objects from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred focuses on international musical instruments and cultures, celebrating rites and traditions with ancient histories and contemporary legacies. Frank Edwinn, a successful basso in the mid-20th century, studied and toured internationally, eventually settling in North Carolina, where he taught music at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Throughout his life, he purchased various objects from around the world, aiming to expose students, and himself, to the wide and wonderful world of musical instruments. This impressive collection occupies a unique position for educating audiences unfamiliar with the vast scope of global music.
And, UNCA’s Ramsey Library Special Collections is now processing the Edwinn’s papers and a few recordings that will be accessible next semester!
LEAF isn’t just for kids! Join us in the Mezzanine while you wait for your youth to finish their class or just to hang out!
Ice Nine Kills & In This Moment
With special guests Avatar, New Years Day
TAJ FARRANT’S PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY POLICY: Taking photos on small hand-held cameras or smartphones is permitted. Professional cameras (deemed as cameras with removable lenses), video, and recording equipment are strictly forbidden.
TAJ FARRANT
Taj Farrant is a young musician who has taken the world by storm with his exceptional guitar skills and captivating performances. At just 14 years old, Taj has already made a name for himself in the music industry, leaving audiences in awe of his talent and potential. Taj was born into a family with a deep appreciation for music, which played a significant role in shaping his early life. Growing up in Australia, Taj was exposed to a variety of musical genres from a young age, thanks to his parents’ diverse taste in music.
Taj’s exceptional guitar skills have garnered attention from music enthusiasts and professionals alike. His ability to effortlessly play intricate solos and execute complex guitar techniques is truly remarkable for someone of his age. Taj’s performances are characterized by a unique blend of technical precision and raw emotion, captivating audiences with his soulful playing style. Taj’s talent has not gone unnoticed in the music industry. He has had the opportunity to perform on renowned stages, sharing the spotlight with established musicians and bands, such as Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas and even given the opportunity to jam with KISS during band rehersal in their studio. Taj’s performances have garnered him recognition and praise from industry professionals, further solidifying his status as a rising star. His musical influences range from rock legends like Angus Young and Jimi Hendrix to contemporary guitar virtuosos such as Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan, which is reflected in his playing style.
Taj’s meteoric rise to fame has resulted in a growing fan base and a dedicated following on social media platforms. His videos showcasing his guitar skills have gone viral, reaching millions of viewers worldwide.
Sigal Music Museum’s current special exhibition, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred, highlights items from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, which hails from all over the world. Showing November 2023 – May 2024, Worlds Apart uses a diverse range of historical instruments, objects, and visuals to bring together musical narratives from seemingly disparate parts of the globe.
Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred aims to increase public access to historical instruments from around the world and improve visitors’ understanding of musical traditions at the global level. Expanding beyond the typical parameters of the Western musical canon, Worlds Apart seeks to expose audiences to musical instruments and customs that are often overlooked or exotified. The instruments and other exhibit materials will offer visitors new perspectives on global music and a chance to consider how music is used for prayer and leisure in cultures around the world. By celebrating these stories, the museum intends to further its mission to collect and preserve historical musical instruments, objects, and information, which engage and enrich people of all ages through exhibits, performances, and experiential programs.
Displaying various objects from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred focuses on international musical instruments and cultures, celebrating rites and traditions with ancient histories and contemporary legacies. Frank Edwinn, a successful basso in the mid-20th century, studied and toured internationally, eventually settling in North Carolina, where he taught music at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Throughout his life, he purchased various objects from around the world, aiming to expose students, and himself, to the wide and wonderful world of musical instruments. This impressive collection occupies a unique position for educating audiences unfamiliar with the vast scope of global music.
And, UNCA’s Ramsey Library Special Collections is now processing the Edwinn’s papers and a few recordings that will be accessible next semester!
Join us at Keynote Speechcrafters and
Discover the
Joy of
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It’s natural to enjoy things you do well,
and you will get good at this.
Our members are committed to meeting each week because
steady progress
requires
steady practice.
Our motto:
When you show up
You speak
Every meeting
Every week
So come join us at the South Buncombe Library on Wednesday evenings and prepare to become a better you.
Please Click here to let us know you are coming.
Guests are always welcome. We look forward to speaking with you!
BULLY
Lucky For You is Bully’s most close-to-the-bone album yet. It’s an album that’s searing and unmistakably marked by its creator’s experiences, while still retaining the massive sound that Alicia Bognanno has become known for over the last decade. Her fourth album draws from personal pain and the universal struggle that is existing, learning, and moving on — and it’s all soundtracked by Bognanno’s rock-solid melodic sensibilities and a widescreen sound that’s impossible to pin down when it comes to the textures explored. These ten songs are simply the most irresistible Bognanno’s put to tape yet, making Lucky For You her greatest triumph to date in a career already packed with them.
Work on Lucky For You began last year, when Bognanno brought some in-progress demos to producer J.T. Daly in his Nashville studio to see if they could strike creative kismet. “Authenticity is always on my mind, without even knowing it,” she explains while discussing their recording process together. “If I’m doing something that doesn’t feel natural or right, I’m quick to shut it down. So it was great with J.T., because I could tell he was a genuine fan who wanted to emphasize what’s actually good about my writing instead of changing it. I could tell how much he cared about the project and it meant alot to me.” The album came together over the course of seven months, the longest gestation process for a Bully record to date: “I was freaking out about it at first, because taking my time was so new for me. But a few months in, I realized how crucial that time ended up being. I got songs out of it that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
“With every record, I feel more and more secure in terms of doing what I want,” Bognanno continues. “For this one, I wanted to be as creative as possible with these songs.” She got her wish: A kaleidoscopic rock record spanning punk’s grit, the crunchy bliss of shoegaze, explosive Britpop, and the type of classic anthems Bully has been known for, Lucky For You’s thematic focus also zooms in on grief and loss. The record is largely inspired by Bognanno’s dog Mezzi passing away, at a time when her life already felt as if in metamorphosis.
“Mezzi was my best friend,” she explains. “She made me feel safe and empowered, she showed me that I was worth loving and never judged me or viewed me as a let down. I always felt accepted, understood and so much less alone. Mezzi was living, breathing proof that I was worthy of being loved.” And the oceanic first single “Days Move Slow” was written shortly after Mezzi’s passing, reflecting the persistence of Bognanno’s incisive wit even while facing adversity. “There was nothing else I could do except sit down and write it, and it felt so good.”
“Hard to Love” stomps and lurches with awesome abandon, resembling one of the most sonically left-field tunes Bognanno’s put to tape as Bully; and then there’s the passionate opening track “All I Do,” which kicks in the door Bully-style with huge riffs atop her lyrical reflections on three years of sobriety. “I’ve been living in this house for seven years,” she says while discussing her current Nashville abode. “Once I stopped drinking, I felt like I was still haunted by mistakes and things that had happened when I was drinking, and it’s still taking me a long time to forget about that while existing in this house. How do I shed the skin from a path I’ve moved on from?”
In that vein, Lucky For You is a document of perseverance in the face of the big and the small stuff. “I’m so overly emotional and sensitive, it’s a blessing and a curse” she says with a laugh, but there’s no downside to her expressions of vulnerability on this record; it’s the latest bit of evidence that nothing can hold Bognanno back.
All ages
Fans of legendary folk icons The Kingston Trio can re-discover their timeless music all over again. All three current members, Mike Marvin, Tim Gorelangton and Buddy Woodward have intrinsic links to and experience with the original group: Mike is the adopted son of founding member Nick Reynolds, who was also his musical mentor; Tim, a close friend since boyhood, is one of the few musicians outside theTrio who has recorded with Nick Reynolds; and Buddy, who has performed with longtime Kingston Trio member George Grove. Many of their personal memories recall the iconic trio’s performances and journey as folk music made its extraordinary ascent to the pinnacle of popular culture – and the top of the music charts.
Back in summer 2021, Grace Potter took off on a solo cross-country road trip that would soon bring a life-saving reconnection with her most unbridled self. Heading out on Route 66 from her home in Topanga Canyon, the Vermont-born artist spent the coming weeks crashing in roadside motels and taking time each night to deliriously transcribe the song ideas she’d dreamed up behind the wheel, often scrawling those notes onto the backs of postcards and motel notepads. After completing two more trips across the U.S. on her own—and partly navigating her way with the help of hand-drawn maps from self-styled historians of Route 66—Potter flew to Nashville for a series of recording sessions that quickly gave way to her most magnificently unfettered collection of songs to date. Equal parts fearlessly raw memoir and carnivalesque fable, the result is a body of work that goes far beyond the typical album experience to deliver something much more all-enveloping: the original motion picture soundtrack to a profoundly transformative moment in Potter’s life, a fantastically twisted odyssey populated by the hitchhikers and outlaws and other lifelong wanderers who roam through the wonderland of her psyche.
The follow-up to Daylight—a 2019 release that earned GRAMMY nominations for Best Rock Album, and Best Rock Performance—Mother Road marks the start of a thrilling new era of a career that’s included turning out seven acclaimed albums, sharing the stage with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, and the Allman Brothers Band, and playing nearly every major music festival (in addition to launching her own festival, Burlington’s Grand Point North). Over the course of its 10 larger-than-life tracks, the album fuses elements of soul, blues, country, and timeless rock-and-roll with masterful abandon, thanks to the vibrant musicianship of Potter and her collaborators: legendary keyboardist Benmont Tench, guitarist Nick Bockrath (Cage The Elephant), bassist Tim Deaux (The Whigs, Kings Of Leon), pedal-steel guitarist Dan Kalisher (Fitz And The Tantrums, Noah Cyrus), Potter’s longtime drummer Matt Musty, and her husband Eric Valentine (a multi-instrumentalist who plays everything from African lute to synth bass on Mother Road). Produced by Valentine (who’s also worked with Queens of the Stone Age, Slash, and Weezer) and recorded at RCA’s famed Studio A, Mother Road fully echoes the ecstatic catharsis of its recording sessions, a process that Potter alternately likens to a tantrum and a haunting. “I didn’t have any real intention of making a record; I just thought I’d get into a room with some friends and mess around with these unfinished ideas I’d been gathering,” she says. “But then an entire album fell out of me, including all the lyrics—the blanks had been filled in, like my subconscious had created finished sentences spoken distinctly from the perspective of all these characters that were living inside me.”
As she reveals, that explosion of creative energy followed a period of emotional crisis for Potter, a turn of events partly triggered by moving back to her hometown with her husband and young son a year into the pandemic. “There was a big piece of my heart that wasn’t ready to go back to Vermont—it all happened about 10 years earlier than I’d expected,” she says. “California had always felt like a new beginning, a place where I was able to step into a community of like-minded weirdos, and through that first winter I started to feel trapped.” After suffering a miscarriage (a particularly brutal medical experience compounded by the fact that she’d unknowingly been carrying twins), Potter began treatment for clinical depression and soon decided to seek the solace and release she’d always found on the road. “I used the rental-car shortage as an excuse to go get our car in Topanga, but the truth is I was going to probably have a full mental breakdown if I didn’t step away from the pressure cooker of judgment, I’d placed on myself and my environment,” she says. “At first, I thought of what I was doing as escapism, and I felt ashamed of that. But eventually I realized I was giving myself permission to do what needed to be done for me to get better.”
Within days of that first road trip, Potter was overcome by memories of past adventures and began piecing together stories set in parallel realities and alternate timelines, each rooted in the unvarnished truth of her emotional experience. “Mother Road is a reframing of my understanding of my history,” she says. “It’s an important and powerful perspective I’d never had until this record, and the heart of it is my journey to self-reliance and a sense of worthiness.”
Named for a line from The Grapes of Wrath—in which John Steinbeck refers to Route 66 the “the mother of all roads…the road of flight”—Mother Road opens on the soulful swagger of its sublimely rowdy title track. “That song is my way of saying I’m not okay, and I’m hoping that the road will at least be my partner-in-crime on this journey, if not a healer,” says Potter, whose powerhouse voice lends the track a certain incandescent grit. A world-weary plea for redemption (from the chorus: “Wherever I’m headed/Mama, don’t let it be down”), “Mother Road” also makes for a prime introduction to the album’s ingenious use of background vocals. “All of those vocals are me, but each voice is a different character I was manifesting in the album,” Potter explains. Mother Road’s motley cast of characters includes the ghost of Waylon Jennings and an enigmatic road warrior named Lady Vagabond. On “Good Time,” meanwhile, Potter inhabits the role of a hellraiser called Brigitte as she serves up a groove-heavy sizzle reel of her real life’s wildest moments (e.g., “I breastfed a stranger once at an In-N-Out Burger/Stripped down to my skivvies and danced across the boulevard”). “Writing that song, I was thinking about all the times when there were no boundaries between me and the world at large,” says Potter. “As you get older there’s this expectation that you need to fall in line, that you can’t keep living in a fantasy your whole life. But I don’t know about that. Maybe we can.”
At the heart of Mother Road lies two back-to-back tracks that together speak to the transcendent power of bending reality and creating our own myths. Co-written by Potter and the Highwomen’s Natalie Hemby (a Grammy-winning songwriter whose credits include tracks by Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris), “Little Hitchhiker” brings Potter’s delicate piano melodies, luminous acoustic-guitar work, and gorgeously longing vocals to a tender reflection on her experience as a nine-year-old runaway. Next, “Lady Vagabond” unfolds with spaghetti-western bravado as Potter immortalizes the lawless superhero within. “To me she represents complete self-reliance and strength, and the permission to be as mischievous or as benevolent as you want to be,” says Potter. “She may not have a great grasp on everything else in the world—she may not even have the greatest grasp on herself—but that’s okay.”
For the closing track on Mother Road, Potter offers up an epic piece of cabaret-pop touched with both theatrical flamboyance and devil-may-care attitude. A bit of coming-of-age autobiography in song form, the piano-led “Masterpiece” paints a picture of her libertine young adulthood in irreverent and dazzling detail (“I was the long-lost daughter of disco/Dancing thru my jock-strap dreams/In my funky little Fiat/Chasing down my Masterpiece”). “One of the silver linings of going back home was driving by my high school every day and having all those memories come rushing back,” says Potter. “The kids I’d grown up with were there with a million stories about me, and every story got weirder and wilder than the last. But I love that that’s how they remembered me, and I love that I’m still living those stories out through my songs.”
Even in Mother Road’s most outrageous moments, Potter infuses her songwriting with essential insight into the endless nuances of life and love and belonging. True to the cinematic nature of Mother Road’s storytelling, she’s also immersed herself in creating the album’s elaborate visual components, an undertaking that’s involved expanding her talents as a filmmaker and multimedia artist. “I know now that there’s more depth to my expression, and I feel ready to bring everything into focus under a much larger circus tent than I have in the past,” she notes. And after thousands of miles on the road, countless nights at seedy motels, and a heartrending return home, Potter has made her way to the kind of creative freedom that leaves both artist and audience indelibly altered—a freedom that’s undeniably led to her masterpiece.
ANTHONY ROSANO AND THE CONQUEROOS
The Billboard and iTunes Chart toping Blues Rocker Anthony Rosano has drawn comparisons to a wide variety of Artists. From SRV and Rory Gallagher to Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen, with a fiery live show and songwriting depth that is refreshing to fans of American Blues Rock.
Rosano’s 2017 self released record “Anthony Rosano and the Conqueroos” debuted at #9 on Billboard and made #1 on the iTunes blues chart, dethroning The Rolling Stones. The record was produced by Mike Zito and featured guest performances by Zito, Anders Osborne, and Johnny Sansone. Extensive touring and live shows followed, culminating in 2019 With Rosano and his “Conqueroos” joining the legendary Bob Seger for a string of opening shows across the eastern United States and Canada.
“ I want to be an on ramp to the Blues.” Drawing from his influences Rosano mixes traditional Blues and Roots elements with a modern Rock delivery. “You see all sorts of music fans at the shows, from Blues Aficionados to long hairs with Metallica T-shirts. If I can get that dude in a Metallica shirt to listen to Muddy Waters, I feel like I am working off a debt to the genre.” This Diversity in appeal has led to slots at LOCKN, Western Maryland Blues Fest, and Madison Square Garden. Opening for artists like Samantha Fish and Tab Benoit to Bob Seger , ZZ Top, and Gov’t Mule.
During the 2020 lockdown Anthony continued to live stream acoustic shows to his fans through Facebook. “I did it at first just to stay sane, performing live is something I NEED to do… It’s part of my makeup. I hoped it would help others get some sort of comfort and forget about what was going on for a little bit.” The streams were a success and one of the new songs “Isolation Blues” ended up being used by NPR for “Voice of America”. Other songs followed and along with a new trio, In 2022 The band signed with Whiskey Bayou Records and recorded 11 songs, produced by Tab Benoit. The album is set for release in Spring of 2023 with national touring to follow.
Sigal Music Museum’s current special exhibition, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred, highlights items from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, which hails from all over the world. Showing November 2023 – May 2024, Worlds Apart uses a diverse range of historical instruments, objects, and visuals to bring together musical narratives from seemingly disparate parts of the globe.
Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred aims to increase public access to historical instruments from around the world and improve visitors’ understanding of musical traditions at the global level. Expanding beyond the typical parameters of the Western musical canon, Worlds Apart seeks to expose audiences to musical instruments and customs that are often overlooked or exotified. The instruments and other exhibit materials will offer visitors new perspectives on global music and a chance to consider how music is used for prayer and leisure in cultures around the world. By celebrating these stories, the museum intends to further its mission to collect and preserve historical musical instruments, objects, and information, which engage and enrich people of all ages through exhibits, performances, and experiential programs.
Displaying various objects from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred focuses on international musical instruments and cultures, celebrating rites and traditions with ancient histories and contemporary legacies. Frank Edwinn, a successful basso in the mid-20th century, studied and toured internationally, eventually settling in North Carolina, where he taught music at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Throughout his life, he purchased various objects from around the world, aiming to expose students, and himself, to the wide and wonderful world of musical instruments. This impressive collection occupies a unique position for educating audiences unfamiliar with the vast scope of global music.
And, UNCA’s Ramsey Library Special Collections is now processing the Edwinn’s papers and a few recordings that will be accessible next semester!
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.
Queer Music Exploration – 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.
music through his musically gifted grandparents. While in Iraq, this defender of freedom became
popular among his comrades for his natural singing ability. Destined to carve out his own musical
journey, Carter began pursuing music professionally in 2019. Traveling the country to play dance halls
like the famous Grizzly Rose, he has already opened for the likes of country legend John Anderson,
Ashland Craft, Chris Lane, Travis Denning, Blackhawk, and Jon Wolfe. As he continues to pursue his
career, it is his hope to bring awareness to the mental struggles that veterans face.
the mouth. There are a lot of battles to face in life, and when somebody says that you can’t do
something you look them right in the face and say, “Watch Me!”. No is not an answer for Carter, and he
intends to continue moving forward with a no quit attitude. “We wrote this song for those folks who
feel like life is beating them down. I try to spread a positive message to motivate others to fight and face
whatever comes their way”.
Sham
Sham is the songs of Shane Justice McCord in collaboration with Mikey Powers and other friends, a constantly reshaping organism. Sham’s newest album ‘Machine Simple’ was recorded over a 6 month period in Asheville, NC, composed of songs composed over the 2 years prior. Started on tape and bounced to computer and expanded in digital format, the songs rooted in voice and acoustic instrumentation, featuring lots of finger picking guitars, clarinet and bass clarinet, various percussion, trumpets, upright bass and dense lyrical presence. Machine Simple encapsulates the fluid and dynamic nature of Sham, sometimes it sounds like a sentimental song, sometimes a rhythmic bed, sometimes abrasive trumpet or layered clarinet harmonies, sometimes a recording of birds. Lovely different friends contributed to Machine Simple including Madeleine Sis, Austyn Wohlers (Tomato Flower), J Brown, John Kiran Fernandes (Cloud Recordings, Elephant 6), Dave Portner (Avey Tare), L. Bacchus, Clay White & more. Cohesive bundle of sonic exploration and composition, attempt to shape human experience into song and sound.
shamtunes.bandcamp.com
Murderboats
Josh Dean is a songwriter. He experiments with long-form repetitive music. His day job is building and repairing pipe organs. He feels honored to be using this skill set to expand his ongoing experimentation with modifying keyboard instruments to include pipe organs and organ design. He has recently completed the recording of a few new pieces playing an organ he’s built while living in Baltimore MD.
This is an 18+ event
Steve Simon & The Kings of Jazz are Brevard’s newest and most exciting and entertaining jazz band with a sound that combines the funkiness of George Benson, the soulfulness of Ray Charles and the smoothness of Diana Krall all wrapped together in big Count Basie style arrangements of American and Latin jazz classics. If you are looking for an amazing live jazz experience then check out the hottest jazz band in the coolest city in North Carolina performing every Thursday at The DFR Lounge from 7pm to 9pm

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., the dynamic duo known as “The First Couple of Pop & Soul,” have left their mark on the music industry. The pair first found fame as lead singers and co-founders of the original 5th Dimension, the legendary group behind classics such as include “You Don’t Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show,” “Up, Up And Away,” (Grammy Hall of Fame, 2004) and “Aquarius / Let The Sunshine In,” (Grammy Hall of Fame, 2003). After leaving the quintet, McCoo and Davis broke barriers as the first Black married couple to star in their own TV series.
The seven-time Grammy Award-winning duo performed at the 1968 Harlem Cultural Festival, sharing the stage with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, are winners of the Tokyo Musical Festival, and recipients of four Playboy Jazz Festival wins. In 2021, they released their first studio album in 30 years. “Blackbird: Lennon-McCartney Icons” weaves themes of social justice into soulful renditions of classic Beatles hits. The album was met with critical acclaim for breathing new life into Blackbird.
Beyond their musical achievements, the couple was featured in Questlove’s directorial debut “Summer of Soul,” made countless television appearances, authored a book, and headlined Las Vegas. All throughout, they have used their platform powerfully for activism, fighting for civil rights.
DEPTHS OF WIKIPEDIA LIVE
FULLY SEATED SHOW
Sigal Music Museum’s current special exhibition, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred, highlights items from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, which hails from all over the world. Showing November 2023 – May 2024, Worlds Apart uses a diverse range of historical instruments, objects, and visuals to bring together musical narratives from seemingly disparate parts of the globe.
Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred aims to increase public access to historical instruments from around the world and improve visitors’ understanding of musical traditions at the global level. Expanding beyond the typical parameters of the Western musical canon, Worlds Apart seeks to expose audiences to musical instruments and customs that are often overlooked or exotified. The instruments and other exhibit materials will offer visitors new perspectives on global music and a chance to consider how music is used for prayer and leisure in cultures around the world. By celebrating these stories, the museum intends to further its mission to collect and preserve historical musical instruments, objects, and information, which engage and enrich people of all ages through exhibits, performances, and experiential programs.
Displaying various objects from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred focuses on international musical instruments and cultures, celebrating rites and traditions with ancient histories and contemporary legacies. Frank Edwinn, a successful basso in the mid-20th century, studied and toured internationally, eventually settling in North Carolina, where he taught music at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Throughout his life, he purchased various objects from around the world, aiming to expose students, and himself, to the wide and wonderful world of musical instruments. This impressive collection occupies a unique position for educating audiences unfamiliar with the vast scope of global music.
And, UNCA’s Ramsey Library Special Collections is now processing the Edwinn’s papers and a few recordings that will be accessible next semester!
Wanna hear the best local music and drink the best local beers? Hop aboard LaZoom’s Purple Bus and rock out with a local band while we take you on a journey to Asheville’s premiere local breweries.
– STANDING ROOM ONLY
THE RESONANT ROGUES
The Resonant Rogues’ dark Appalachian folk paints a picture of their lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina and on the road. Anchored by the songwriting duo of Sparrow (banjo, accordion) and Keith Smith (guitar), they’ve traveled the byways and highways of America and crossed the oceans with instruments in tow. From riding freight trains to building their own homestead, the pair are no strangers to blazing unconventional trails. At once rooted and adventurous, each song tells a story of real experiences, friendships, and challenges.
The Rogues just wrapped up a record in Nashville with renowned producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff), featuring guest appearances from Sierra Ferrell, Benjamin Tod, John James Tourville (Deslondes), and Jason Dea West.
“Their intense cohesion is so intertwined that it feels like they’re playing with one pair of hands.” –No Depression
“I urge you to get out and hear them” -Lonesome Highway
Born in Italy to a Sicilian-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Cristina Vane has always had a tenuous relationship with identity and place. She grew up between England, France and Italy, and was fluent in four languages by the time she moved to her fathers’ native United States for university at 18. Despite this, (and perhaps because of it) she had no sense of belonging to any one culture or country. What she did have, however, was an intense love of music. Powered by her signature take on blues and rock, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cristina Vane’s debut album, Nowhere Sounds Lovely, earned her praise from the likes of American Songwriter and Rolling Stone Country, which deemed it ‘mesmerizing stuff’. The 2021 release was written largely on a road trip across America. Since then, Vane has laid down roots in Nashville and had the opportunity to spend more time exploring internally. On her sophomore album “Make Myself Me Again”, Vane has found a way all the way around the country and right back to herself, both musically and personally. “I’ve been trying to peel back the layers, to understand who I am, and I think that process has translated to this record,” she explains, “The production is straightforward, more minimal, and a bit of a return to my rock roots but still paying homage to the music I’ve explored since then”.
After graduating from Princeton with a degree in Comparative Literature, Vane moved to Los Angeles where she worked at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, and spent every free moment working on her music, studying fingerstyle guitar with mentor Pete Steinberg. Those years pushed her into deeper exploration of country blues picking and old folk guitar styles. In the last few years she’s taken a deep dive into old-time and bluegrass music, adding clawhammer banjo to her arsenal of instruments.
Buncombe Turnpike is a long time staple in the Asheville bluegrass scene. Their sets are made up of primarily hand crafted original songs, but the band also plays a variety of other heartfelt tunes ranging from traditional and contemporary bluegrass. With their crowd pleasing demeanor, seasoned musicianship, and powerful vocals the band has made a name for themselves among traditional and contemporary listeners alike. Band members are, Tom Godleski, lead vocals and upright bass, Korey Warren guitar , mandolin, lead and backing vocals. David Hyatt, guitar and mandolin and lead and backing vocals, George Buckner, banjo, Don Lewis, fiddle. mandolin. lead and backing vocals. Buncombe Turnpike will be playing tunes from their new album, “Good Measure.”
Tickets are $15. Doors open at 6:30pm and seating is first come first served. Online ticket sales end an hour before the performance time, but there may still be tickets available for purchase at the door. Call BMCA for availability at 828.669.0930.
Mount Eerie
Phil Elverum is an artist and human being from the Pacific Northwest town of Anacortes. His recordings, released variously as The Microphones and Mount Eerie, represent just a portion of his artistic output, which has ranged from running a label and co-organizing festivals to self-publishing books, photography, and painting. But it is for his stunningly original music that he is known best, from the earliest tape experiments of the ’90s to the immersive sound-diary of Microphones in 2020. Elverum has never shied from exploring the high mountain passes, finding new ways to sculpt with sound, and trying to communicate the momentary experience of being human as clearly as the water from freshly melted snow.
Daughter of Swords
Alexandra Sauser-Monnig is a North Carolina-based songwriter who releases work as a solo musician under the moniker Daughter of Swords, as well as one-half of The A’s, and in the folk trio Mountain Man.
Sauser-Monnig’s most recent solo album ‘Dawnbreaker’ began as the first phase of her return to music after stepping to the sidelines for the better part of a decade. Her college trio, Mountain Man, rose to quick acclaim for their peerless harmonies around 2010, but the friends slowly drifted apart, following their own interests to different coasts and concerns. While working on a flower farm as a farmhand, though, Sauser-Monnig realized that she missed the emotional articulation she found in writing songs and singing them and resolved to start again. She pieced together an album just as Mountain Man—now newly gathered in the fertile Piedmont of North Carolina—began to regroup for its second LP, 2018’s aptly named Magic Ship. Working with Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, Sauser-Monnig shaped what began as quiet reflections into confident compositions, crackling with country swagger and a sparkling pop warmth. They were, after all, preemptive odes to the next phase of life.
Calling the ten tunes of Dawnbreaker breakup songs is to hamstring them with elegiac expectations, to paint them as sad-eyed surrenders to loss and grief. Sure, there is the gentle opener “Fellows,” a hushed number that explores the turmoil of being unable to reciprocate the feelings of a wild and shy, tall and fine man. And there’s the blossoming country shuffle of “Easy Is Hard,” where Sauser-Monnig stands in the yard and sees her lover leave, his taillights fading into the night sky; she can’t sleep, so she gets up to turn the lights and stereo on, to “feel my soul coming down.”
Even there, amid the throes of a life convulsion, there is a wisp of hope and possibility, framed by the way “the dim light change[s] into dawn, rosy blue, pink fawn.” The very heart of Dawnbreaker is not the impending breakup that inspired many of its songs but the sense of liberation and breaking out that the breakup inspired. Buoyed by the insistent patter of a drum machine and rich acoustic guitars, Sauser-Monnig finds herself in search of new thrills during “Gem,” whether pondering the fleeting nature of existence at a waterfall’s edge or watching the shapes of mountains seemingly dance beneath her headlights. The muted, harmonica-lined boogie of “Sun” begins with a vulnerable confession, a revelation of loneliness; it is, however, a low-key anthem for the open road, about giving oneself over to the infinity of solitude and an endless strip of asphalt. Sauser-Monnig captures these scenes with a painter’s eye and delivers them with a novelist’s heart.
This is an 18+ event
Join us for a rhythm-filled weekend at The Draftsman with 5j Burrow! Elevate your Friday night with an electrifying live music performance from local performers while sipping on our unique cocktails. Unwind, tap your feet, and indulge in a perfect blend of melodies and mixology.
AGES 21+
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Asheville psychedelic rock warriors The Snozzberries are hosting their 3rd Annual Psychedelic Circus on November 17th at Asheville Music Hall. The concert is an immersive audiovisual experience, featuring performers, interactive art exhibits, and more fun surprises.
Last year’s show featured dancers, live painters, visual artists, a balloon wall, and over 500 balloons leaf-blown over the crowd. Always wanting to up the ante, this year will feature a full transformation of the Music Hall space into a spectacle of wonder.
The Snozzberries are celebrating a year of accomplishments including playing national festivals Suwannee Hulaween and Summer Camp Music Festival, along with opening for Big Something, rocking a packed house at AVL Fest and playing Papadosio’s Asheville festival Summer Solstice. Combining hi-energy psychedelia, progressive rock, and deep-fried funk, The Snozzberries deliver a powerhouse, genre-bending sonic journey.
In addition, Virginia-based rock band Kendall Street Company will start the night strong with their genre-fluid, eclectic rock. The ensemble has drawn varied comparisons to the dynamic jams of Umphrey’s McGee and Widespread Panic, songwriting prowess of John Prine, experimental psychedelia of Pink Floyd, progressive jazz-infused rock of Frank Zappa, and off-color humor of Ween and They Might Be Giants. Including elements of crowd participation, off-the-cuff comedic bits, haphazard choreography and musical improvisation, they are the perfect fit for this exciting event.
Tickets will go on sale Friday 9/22 on the Asheville Music Hall website.
Poster art by Asheville Art Family.
Sigal Music Museum’s current special exhibition, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred, highlights items from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, which hails from all over the world. Showing November 2023 – May 2024, Worlds Apart uses a diverse range of historical instruments, objects, and visuals to bring together musical narratives from seemingly disparate parts of the globe.
Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred aims to increase public access to historical instruments from around the world and improve visitors’ understanding of musical traditions at the global level. Expanding beyond the typical parameters of the Western musical canon, Worlds Apart seeks to expose audiences to musical instruments and customs that are often overlooked or exotified. The instruments and other exhibit materials will offer visitors new perspectives on global music and a chance to consider how music is used for prayer and leisure in cultures around the world. By celebrating these stories, the museum intends to further its mission to collect and preserve historical musical instruments, objects, and information, which engage and enrich people of all ages through exhibits, performances, and experiential programs.
Displaying various objects from the JoAnn and Frank Edwinn Collection, Worlds Apart: Musical Instruments from Secular to Sacred focuses on international musical instruments and cultures, celebrating rites and traditions with ancient histories and contemporary legacies. Frank Edwinn, a successful basso in the mid-20th century, studied and toured internationally, eventually settling in North Carolina, where he taught music at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Throughout his life, he purchased various objects from around the world, aiming to expose students, and himself, to the wide and wonderful world of musical instruments. This impressive collection occupies a unique position for educating audiences unfamiliar with the vast scope of global music.
And, UNCA’s Ramsey Library Special Collections is now processing the Edwinn’s papers and a few recordings that will be accessible next semester!
Rock out this holiday season with TSO as we bring back ‘The Ghosts of Christmas Eve: The Best of TSO and More’! We’re pulling out all the stops to make sure this winter tour is our best show in years.
**Outlaw Sound Festival Takes Center Stage at Revolve Gallery**
“Outlaw Sound” is a one-day musical event that promises to redefine the concert experience as a one-of-a-kind event for music enthusiasts of all generations, with a special focus on electronic and experimental artists.
Date: Saturday, November 18th
Time: Starting at 5:00 PM
Location: Revolve Gallery
Outlaw Sound Festival lineup artists include:
– Mark Hosler of Negativland, with his first solo performance in five years.
– We Are Ants to Them, a project by Andre Chomondeley, known for touring with legendary rock artists such as Pat Metheny, Adrian Belew, and Steve Howe. Chomondeley creates captivating soundscapes using modular synthesizers.
– Mike Holmes, known as Nostalgianoid, and the rising local artist Robin T100 Banks.
– A screening of the short film “Attempt to Move a Building” by A. Eithne Hamilton.
– Stoolsampler, who crafts unique dance tracks from a collage of voicemails left for Firestorm Books.
In addition to the outstanding musical performances, the event will feature an array of wares by talented artists and vendors, including Robin Gelberg’s ceramics, Edwin Salas Art, and offerings from Firestorm Books.
Outlaw Sound Festival is not just about the music; it’s about supporting the community. This event will contribute to the growth of Revolve Gallery and extend a helping hand to the Aston Park Defendants.
Produced by the Pipsissewa Movement Project and Peter Speer, the Outlaw Sound Festival promises a night of unforgettable music, art, and community spirit. Join us on Saturday, November 18th, for a unique and exciting experience.
Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of something extraordinary. We hope to see you there!
For more information and tickets, please visit
https://withfriends.co/event/16937305/outlaw_sound
Since 2015, Revolve has been a thriving hub of artistic experimentation in the vibrant city of Asheville, North Carolina. In 2021, we evolved into a dynamic co-op contemporary art space, dedicated to fostering creative energies on the bedrock of inclusivity, accessibility, and unbridled experimentation.
