Flogging Molly Brings Irish Sounds to Asheville

Flogging Molly combines traditional Irish music with a punk rock sound. The group brings its special brand of music to Asheville at 7:30 p.m. February 28 for a sold-out show at The Orange Peel. The band's new album, Speed of Darkness, is designed as a tribute to a working people and is the impetus for the current tour that is just beginning ... read more

Ignite’s Lightning Talks Strike Asheville

If you were given five minutes to present any topic, what subject matter would you choose? Now imagine you’re allowed to create a deck of 20 slides that automatically advance as you speak. That’s the structure behind Ignite’s “lightning” talks. On February 21, the first Ignite Asheville event gave this unique opportunity to 10 preselected speakers. ... read more

River Whyless Brings Fresh Sounds to Asheville

Grassroots is a term used frequently here in the Asheville community. The River Whyless uses a grassroots approach to making music, using natural sounds from acorns dropping to band members walking through leaves. The hope of this baroque folk rock band is to “reach toddlers and 90 year olds at the same time through music,” says Halli ... read more

Asheville Art Museum Anchors Downtown Culture

Downtown Asheville has much to offer from a variety of restaurants, shops, and vendors, but it’s also home to the Asheville Art Museum, an organization that has been invested in the art community since 1948. After bouncing around a bit in its early existence, the museum’s home since 1992 is a 1920s building in Pack Square built in Italian Renaissance ... read more

Brother Wolf Begins Capital Campaign

Asheville is known as a pet-friendly town. Brother Wolf Animal Rescue (BWAR) is asking the area's pet lovers to help keep a no-kill shelter open long-term. BWAR currently rents their space at 31 Glendale Avenue in Asheville, but the organization has an opportunity to buy the space from its present owner, Robert Glenn. The new capital campaign ... read more

FarmGirl: The Evolution of a Garden

FarmGirl and The Laurel of Asheville have teamed up this year to take you on a gardening journey. For this website and print magazine, FarmGirl will be writing about garden design, seed selection, how to build a raised bed, water catchment, landscaping with edibles, and will offer some fertilizing and harvesting tips. In the first installment of this series ... read more

Wanda Jackson Says "Let’s Have a Party"

Playing professionally for nearly 60 years, Wanda Jackson brings her show to The Orange Peel February 9 for an 8 p.m. show. Known as “The Queen of Rockabilly,” Wanda is planning an Asheville performance that illustrates her range of musical sensibilities.Growing up in Oklahoma, Wanda Jackson never guessed she would become the first lady of a new ... read more

ARTERY Hosts Exhibit by Local Photographer

The Asheville Area Arts Council is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition by Asheville photographer Erin Fussell, Twenties: Decade in Polaroid, 1999-2008, opening February 3 at the ARTERY. Erin’s photographs chronicle the decade of her 20s, ending in 2008 when Polaroid stopped making instant film and the artist turned 29. The immediacy of ... read more

Blind Boy Chocolate & the Milk Sheiks

Asheville offers such a wide variety of great local bands in all sorts of genres. There’s bluegrass, rock, jazz, electronic, funk … and then there’s Blind Boy Chocolate & the Milk Sheiks.Most often a four-man band (sometimes guests sit in) these guys have musical roots that date back to a much simpler time in American music. Inspired by ragtime and an era of jug ... read more

Arts & Crafts Conference Anchors Heritage Week

Citing the role the American Arts & Crafts movement has played in the "artistic, architectural, aesthetic and economic development of the City of Asheville," Mayor Terry Bellamy recently signed an official proclamation earmarking the week of February 12-18 as Arts & Crafts Heritage Week. Today the Arts & Crafts movement is alive, well, and flourishing in Asheville ... read more

Bluegrass First Class Returns to Asheville

Bluegrass fans in Western North Carolina should be excited that the 17th annual Bluegrass First Class returns to Asheville February 17–19. The musical event takes place once again in the Grand Ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Resort, 1 Resort Drive, in Asheville. Aficionados of bluegrass music can cacti some of the genre's top acts in a close, intimate setting. The three-day ... read more

Creating Jobs and Going Deep for WNC

As the population and needs of our region change, Mountain BizWorks changes. As CEO Shaw Canale likes to say of the 21-year-old nonprofit community development financial institution, “We ask ourselves how we can go deeper.” Its clients are a who’s who of area businesses. The 2011 “Best of WNC” list features 51 Mountain BizWorks clients. “We have touched ... read more

Hendersonville Chamber Music Concerts Begin March 4

Hendersonville Chamber Music brings this style of song up to date to appeal to audiences of all ages with varied musical taste preferences. Featuring four quite different performing groups, this year's schedule will appeal to those who enjoy live performances of fascinating music, both classical and jazz performed by top-notch musicians ... read more

New UNCA Exhibit Examines WNC Immigrants

UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Gallery welcomes “Our Voices, Our Stories, Nuestras Voces, Nuestras Historias,” a new traveling exhibition documenting the lives of immigrants and their journeys to and within Western North Carolina. The exhibit includes art in various media and the voices of immigrants interviewed about their lives and experiences ... read more

Digital Accordion Champ Plays at UNCA

Cory Pesaturo, who has won accordion competitions all over the world and is a pioneer of jazz accordion, will perform with UNC Asheville student jazz ensembles at 4 p.m. Sunday, February 19, in Lipinsky Auditorium ... read more

Ignite Asheville Aims to Spur Ideas

The Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, Asheville-Buncombe County Economic Development Coalition, and a core team of community businesses and volunteers bring Ignite Asheville to the area on Tuesday, February 21. The event will be held at The Grey Eagle in the River Arts District ... read more

Ikebana International Begins 2012 Program Year

Ikebana International of Asheville opens its 2012 program year with a cultural exploration of Kamishibai (kah-mee-she-bye), a form of Japanese storytelling. Cultural liasion Emiko Suzuki of Japan and Hendersonville will present "The Paper Crane," one of Japan’s best-loved children’s stories with large illustrated story boards. Kamishibaior is best described as “paper-theater.” ... read more

February 19 Marks Asheville's 2012 Mardi Gras Parade

Asheville Mardi Gras, a nonprofit social aid and pleasure club, invites you to join this year's parade and ball. The 2012 Asheville Mardi Gras Parade will step off from Wall Street on Bacchus Sunday, February 19, at 3:05 p.m. rain or shine ... read more

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Natasha Trethewey to Read at UNCA

Natasha Tretheway, one of America’s most acclaimed poets and a compelling speaker, will offer a reading and talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, February 23, in UNC Asheville’s Humanities Lecture Hall. This event is free and open to the public ... read more

Environmental Documentary Comes to UNCA

The Western North Carolina Alliance is hosting a screening of the award-winning environmental documentary Bag It at UNC Asheville on Thursday, February 16 ... read more

UNCA Music Department Announces Performances

UNC Asheville’s Music Department has a busy season of student performances planned on campus this spring. Upcoming are two performances scheduled in February, three in March, and three in April. Admission is $5 at the door for each performance, with students and children free ... read more

YMI Center Hosts a Benefit for Adama Dembele

On Saturday, February 25, from 6-10 p.m., the YMI Cultural Center at 39 South Market Street sets the stage for Asheville’s first Soumu, or in West African lingo, a celebration of dancing, singing, food, and music ... read more

Arboretum Celebrates Trails and Tales

The North Carolina Arboretum will host Books and Boots, a two-day event celebrating the beauty and bounty of the world around us. Taking place Saturday and Sunday, February 18 and 19, the event will include family programming encouraging indoor and outdoor winter activities, as well as special presentations by select authors ... read more

AmiciMusic Presents Four-Hand Concerts & Other Events in February

It’s a Fine (4-Hand) Romance, a concert featuring award-winning pianist David Troy Francis and AmiciMusic director Daniel Weiser, takes place in several different venues this month. The two will perform the music of Mozart, Faure, Lecuona, Barber, Borodin, and will feature Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” ... read more

Asheville Small Plate Crawl Set for February 21–23

Sample the best of Asheville’s culinary scene in the “Small Plate Crawl” February 21–23 from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day. Dozens of independent restaurants will create special Small Plate Menus priced from $3–8. Participating restaurants are located in downtown Asheville, Biltmore Village, and North, South, East, and West Asheville ... read more

ACN Hosts Annual Dine to Be Kind Benefit

On Tuesday, February 28, more than 50 area restaurants will contribute a portion of their day’s proceeds to Animal Compassion Network’s spay/neuter and foster/adoption programs. This ninth annual Dine to Be Kind will take place on National Spay Day as part of a national campaign to promote the lifesaving benefits of spay and neuter programs for dogs and cats. Last year’s event met the goal of $20,000, and this year’s goal is $25,000 needed to meet the growing need for ACN’s programs ... read more

The Click! Project: 14 Photographers - 14 Weeks

The Click! Project, a unique combination of 14 photographers with diverse talents, will open February 14 and run through May 22 at The Conn- Artist Studios & Art Gallery, 611 S. Main Street in Hendersonville. The event— featuring 14 weeks of photographic exhibits, workshops, photography chats, and more—is the brainchild of Constance Vlahoulis, The Laurel cover artist this month and owner of the studios ... read more

Brown Mountain Lights Symposium Set for February 11

For centuries, mysterious, unexplained lights have appeared randomly along the Brown Mountain range northwest of Morganton 57 miles east of Asheville off I-40. This month, a first-ever symposium aims to finally solve the mystery of this strange phenomenon ... read more

BMCM+AC: Asheville Dance-A-Thon!

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) announces the inaugural Asheville Dance-A-Thon! The event will take place on Saturday, February 4, at the UNCA Justice Athletic Center, from 11:59 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. It will feature a talented crew of Asheville’s most dynamic dancers and instructors ... read more

Blue Ridge Orchestra Concert Set for February 4

At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 4, the Blue Ridge Orchestra (BRO) will present a concert opening with von Weber’s Overture to der Freischütz. The concert will be in the First Baptist Church, 5 Oak Street in Asheville. The concert will feature Dr. David Foster, organist at the church for the past 35 years ... read more

Mountain Spirit Coffeehouse Hosts Patrick Landeza & Friends

At 7 p.m. on Sunday, February 12, Hawaiian musician, songwriter, producer, and educator Patrick Kahakauwila Kamaholelani Landeza will take the stage at Mountain Spirit Coffeehouse in Asheville for a night of warm island music. He will be joined by a band of talented Hawaiian musicians from around North Carolina for this show. Hawaiian outfits are encouraged and the coffeehouse has promised to turn up the heat ... read more