Arts & Performance

Our guests for the next Friday@2 will be The Three Davids; David Holt, David LaMotte, and David Wilcox.

  Each David well-known in his own right, The Three Davids will bring us their unique blend of styles in live performance from our studios.

The Three Davids perform at Asheville’s Diana Wortham Theatre on February 20th.

Our guests for the next Friday@2 will be The Three Davids; David Holt, David LaMotte, and David Wilcox. Each David well known in their own right, The Three Davids will bring us their unique blend of styles in live performance from our studios Friday @2, just before their show at Asheville's Diana Wortham Theatre on February 20th.

The Asheville Symphony announced Tuesday that Music Director and Conductor Daniel Meyer will conclude his tenure with the ASO following the 2017-18 season.

In 2015, Meyer signed a contract extension, which includes conducting a full 2016-17 season and a reduced schedule in 2017-18.

Listen Friday afternoon at 2 for another live performance from our studios, this time by The HotPoint Trio. January 23rd marked  the 106th anniversary of the birth of the legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. On Saturday evening, musicians from around Western North Carolina and beyond will gather at the Grey Eagle to pay tribute to this influential musician.  The HotPoint Trio will give us a preview and, along with coordinator and guitarist Jon Corbin, help us understand the importance of Django Reinhardt.

Join us at 2 Friday for the HotPoint Trio live from our studios.

Listen this afternoon at 2 when Free Planet Radio performs live in our studios. This trio of Asheville-based musicians, each with a deep background in a wide variety of musical styles, will bring us their blend of world, jazz, and classical music and give us a preview of their upcoming concert at the Altamont Theatre. 

http://www.freeplanetradio.com

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born January 27, 1756. Tune in today to help us celebrate his birthday. We'll be playing a variety of works dating from his earliest years to his last. We'll even include some compositions by his first teacher, his father, Leopold Mozart.

  Pianist and composer David Troy Francis performs a benefit concert for WNCAP on Sunday at 3 at the Asheville Country Club. In addition to performing music from Rachmaninoff to Gershwin, David is an award-winning composer. His work, Bark, the Musical was recently staged at Asheville Community Theatre. David speaks with Dick Kowal at 1:06 today about his music and the benefit concert.

True to its spirit of music discovery, NPR Music is kicking off the New Year with an invite to unsigned artists of all genres to participate in the 2016 Tiny Desk Contest: Show them why you should perform in NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concert series. The winner will secure a spot at the iconic performance space and a U.S. tour with NPR Music.

November 27, 2015 marks the 7th National Day of Listening. The Day of Listening is a national holiday started by StoryCorps in 2008. On the day after Thanksgiving, StoryCorps asks everyone to take a few minutes to record an interview with a loved one.

WCQS Music Director Dick Kowal in the studio with NC Stage's Charlie Flynn-McIver and poet, playwright and Cantaria member David Hopes. The three just talked about NC Stage production of All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, featuring  Cantaria, the Gay Men's Chorus of Asheville. Coming up December 9th.

For more information about the production at NC Stage and Cantaria,

visit www.ncstage.org and www.cantariaasheville.org

Longtime WCQS friend David Holt was in the studio with Dick Kowal today to talk about his upcoming performance in Cullowhee this Sunday at the Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center at Western Carolina University.   David is a  traditional music and storytelling icon, and four-time Grammy Award winner and Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Satirist Lizz Winstead is tackling reproductive rights with "Lady Parts Justice." Lizz Winstead has made a career being the watchdog of the watchdog. As a co-creator of The Daily Show in the 1990s, Winstead was one of the first comedians satirizing both news makers and news media.  Her current focus is on women’s rights, and she founded Lady Parts Justice, an organization that uses comedy and digital media to advocate for reproductive rights. State of Things host Frank Stasio talked with Winstead about political satire and her comedy on the program today.

Join us Tuesday morning at 10 and Thursday evening at 8 for our broadcast of the Asheville Symphony’s October 17th concert. David Kim, Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, is the soloist with the orchestra in Max Bruch’s 1st Violin Concerto. Also on the program is a performance of Robert Schuman’s Second Symphony and Osvaldo Golijov’s Sidereus. Chip Kaufmann is your host. Please join us Tuesday morning at 10 and Thursday evening at 8.

WCQS Music Director Dick Kowal is just back from a trip with WCQS music lovers down the Danube - visiting Prague, Vienna and Budapest. All this week, during the 9 o'clock hour, Dick will present music celebrating Mozart, Beethoven, Smetana and more - and celebrating the incredibly vibrant music and cultural scene of Central Europe - past and present.

That's Music of the Blue Danube every morning this week - in the 9 o'clock hour - on WCQS.

  Join us Thursday evening at 8 for our broadcast of the Asheville Symphony’s September 19 concert, the opening night of its 2015-2016 season. The soloist is violinist Chee-Yun, who stepped in at the last minute for an ailing Angela Brown. She performs a number of virtuoso showpieces with the Symphony, including Pablo de Sarasate’s  “Zigeunerweisen.”

On the second half of the concert, the Symphony plays music from American composers Leonard Bernstein (On The Town) and Howard Hanson (Symphony No. 2, “The Romantic.”)