Arts & Performance

Wiley Cash grew up in a solid, supportive family, attended great schools and is quick to say he is the product of a sheltered, all-American privilege.

So even though he sets his stories in his native North Carolina, Cash is writing as an outsider.

“I had to go to graduate school in Louisiana, however many decades removed from the event itself, to learn about the defining moment in my hometown’s history,” Cash said.

Female readers of young adult fiction have lifted Stephanie Perkins onto the list of New York Times Bestsellers, an appearance on “The Today Show” and other notoriety most young authors would covet. For Perkins, that meteoric success triggered a crippling bout of depression.

Some might wonder why there’s an annual conference dedicated to a tiny college that shut down 60 years ago. That conference, “ReViewing,” going into its ninth year, until now has been the sole domain of arts professors with particular interests in multidisciplinary practice and the groundbreaking history of Black Mountain College.

Murphy Funkhouser Capps begins writing her plays by living her life.

That’s why it’s impossible to separate the writer and performer from the teenage runaway, the former solo parent, the woman whose husband is battling bone cancer.

Nearly all counties in Western Carolina are now home to self-serve kiosks where people can learn more about mental illness – and determine whether they might be suffering from one.  The kiosks are really just a computer screen, with no keyboard and a phone is attached to the screen.  With just a few touches on the screen, users can learn the symptoms of several common mental health conditions says Jessie Smathers of Vaya Health, which helped place the kiosks around the region.

Ann Dunn has spent her entire life in motion -- by necessity, force of will, restlessness and, through it all, a curiosity that refuses to sit still.

At age 71, Dunn has so many active elements in her life: She has a fulltime teaching schedule at UNC-Asheville. She’s working on her fourth book of poetry. Every summer, she dives into culturally immersive travels the world over, and she’s eager to share what she sees and learns both in her classroom, with her 11 grandchildren and anyone she has time to sit with.

 If you want people to hear some new songs you’ve written, there’s an open-mike around Asheville almost any night of the week. But for songwriters who want to put a little more on the line, the One Stop hosts a songwriting competition every Wednesday night throughout the fall.

Music directors and orchestras often stick together about as long as coaches last with professional football teams. But on Saturday, the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra launches its 20th season under the baton of Thomas Joiner. This is the story of a marriage that works.

Different Strokes is an Asheville theater company with a mission to "change the world one play at a time." Still, Stephanie Hickling-Beckman, the founding director of Different Strokes, couldn't have known the company's production of "Best of Enemies" would come on the vapors of the racially charged events of Charlottesville, Virginia.

It's a bittersweet day here at Blue Ridge Public Radio.  Thirty one years ago this month, music director Dick Kowal hit the airwaves.   Today, he hosted his last show.   While it's  impossible to capture all of the amazing accomplishments of his talented career, we do have some highlights, and a few good stories.  BPR's Helen Chickering reports.

(Dick Kowal on the air)

“It’s about 6 minutes after 9, good morning.”

If you live in Western North Carolina, chances are, you know this voice.

(Dick Kowal on the air)

Asheville Community Theatre and Drama UNC-A will co-produce the swashbuckling prequel to Peter Pan, Peter and the Starcatcher, opening Thursday evening at the Carol Belk Theatre on the UNC-Asheville campus.  Cast members Chloe Zeitounian and Alex Daly spoke with Dick Kowal about the 2012 Broadway show.

The Asheville Symphony performs the finale to this week's Asheville Amadeus Festival in a Sunday afternoon concert at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. The featured soloist is violinist Midori, who will perform Mendelssohn's e minor Violin Concerto. Also on the program, Mozart's Symphony No. 35,  Stravinsky's  "Dumbarton Oaks" concerto, and Faure's Pavanne featuring the Asheville Symphony Chamber Chorus.

Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center (our neighbors on Broadway in downtown Asheville,) presents the 7th annual {Re}Happening Saturday, March 25th at Lake Eden in Black Mountain (the site of Black Mountain College and Camp Rockmont.) The event will feature an immersive experience created by many area artists, as well as a guest appearance by Chicago based Third Coast Percussion, an ensemble steeped in the music and aesthetic of John Cage, BMC College artist.

The Asheville Choral Society celebrates the Asheville Amadeus Festival and its own 40th anniversary with a concert Friday night, March 17th, at Asheville's Central United Methodist Church. The program will feature excerpts from Mozart's Mass in C minor as well as works from the 18th to the 21st century by Vivaldi, Stephen Paulus, Jake Runestad and Dolly Parton.

Asheville Baroque Concerts presents the finale program of this year's season on Sunday afternoon, March 19th, and 3pm at Oakley United Methodist Church. Titled "Oltremontano, from beyond the mountains," music for recorder, viola da gamba and harpsichord. Artistic director and viola da gamba player Gail Ann Schroeder talked with Dick Kowal about the music and the musicians.

NC Stage Company presents Souvenir: A Fantasia on theLife of Florence Foster Jenkins, opening Wednesday, March 15th and running through April 2nd. Part of this week's Asheville Amadeus Festival, the play looks at the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, an eccentric socialite who lives under the delusion that she is an enchanting coloratura soprano when she is actually incapable of holding pitch.

The Asheville Amadeus Festival officially kicks off Friday evening with a beer release and open house at Highland Brewing. Beginning at 7pm, the event celebrates the release of Highland's "Wolfgang 1756 Symphony Lager," music by Matt Townsend and The Wonder of the World, food trucks, and more. Leah Wong Ashburn, president of Highland Brewing, and David Whitehill, executive director of the Asheville Symphony, joined Dick Kowal to talk about the event and give an overview of the 10 day Asheville Amadeus Festival.

This week, BPR gardening expert Alison Arnold talks about how to do composting with earthworms.

The first concert in the Asheville Amadeus Festival, the Blue Ridge Orchestra performs in UNC-A's Lipinsky Auditorium Saturday morning at 11 and that afternoon at 3 in a concert titled "A Wedding with Wolfgang." In a family-oriented program, the orchestra will play "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue." Director Dr. Milton Crotts talked with Dick Kowal about the program.

As part of the Asheville Amadeus festival, Pan Harmonia will hold "Walk With Wolfgang," a progressive chamber music concert, on Monday, March 13th at 6. Three different chamber ensembles will perform at three different spaces in downtown Asheville; Haen Gallery, Asheville Museum of Science, and Blue Dream Curry House..

Kate Steinbeck, director of Pan Harmonia, talked with Dick Kowal about the concert. 

As part of the second Asheville Amadeus Festival, the Asheville Symphony Chorus will hold a Mozart Requiem Sing-Along on Tuesday, March 14th at 7:30 at Asheville's First Presbyterian Church.  Michael Lancaster, conductor of the Asheville Symphony Chorus,  talked with Dick Kowal

This week, WCQS gardening expert Alison Arnold talks about the dramatic swings in temperature and what gardeners should do about it.

The fifteenth annual Asheville Fringe Arts Festival takes place January 26th thru 29th in and around Asheville, with multiple performance sites including theatres, galleries, clubs, and even the purple LaZoom bus.

Jim Julien is co-chair of the 2017 Festival, and he spoke with Dick Kowal about what's coming.

NC Stage Co. presents Jeeves In Bloom, from the stories of P.G. Wodehouse, adapted by Margaret Raether, opening Wednesday, January 25th. The production features favorites Charlie Flynn-McIver, Michael McCauley, and Scott Treadway. Charlie and Michael talked with Dick Kowal about the show.