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.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Soprana Rooftop Cucina Restaurant Week
Jan 22 all-day
Soprana Rooftop Cucina

Join us at Soprana Rooftop Cucina for a prefixe menu special. The opportunity to try favorite salads, pizzettes and deserts all for $30 – it doesn’t get much better than that.

Soprana Rooftop Cucina is open Monday – Thursday from 5pm-10pm; Friday – Sunday from 12pm-10pm. The restaurant is located on the rooftop of Embassy Suites by Hilton Asheville Downtown (192 Haywood Street). For more information and upcoming events, visit www.sopranarooftop.com and follow on Instagram @SopranaRooftop. Enjoy complimentary parking during your stay. To book your reservation, call 828.333.7006.

National Geographic: The Greatest Wildlife Photographs
Jan 22 @ 12:00 am – May 11 @ 7:00 pm
North Carolina Arboretum

Arboretum visitors will witness some of the most surprising animal behavior in the new National Geographic exhibition, The Greatest Wildlife Photographs.” The very best wildlife pictures from the pages of National Geographic magazine have been chosen to be displayed in this exhibition. Curated by renowned nature picture editor, Kathy Moran, this exhibition is a celebratory look at wildlife with images taken by National Geographic’s most iconic photographers such as, Michael “Nick” Nichols, Steve Winter, Paul Nicklen, Beverly Joubert, David Doubilet and more. Showcasing the evolution of photography, the images convey how innovations such as camera traps, remote imaging, and underwater technology have granted photographers access to wildlife in their natural habitat.

For 115 years, National Geographic has pioneered and championed the art of wildlife photography, and captivated generations of engaged audiences with a steady stream of extraordinary images of animals in nature. From the very first such image to appear – a reindeer in 1903 – National Geographic Society’s publications have broken new ground and push the bar higher again and again, establishing an unmatched legacy of artistic, scientific, and technical achievement. These are the Greatest Wildlife Photographs. This is included with admission to NC Arboretum.

Max Adrian: RIPSTOP
Jan 22 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft
The Center for Craft is thrilled to announce the opening of Max Adrian: RIPSTOP. Adrian (he/they), a textile artist who was awarded a Windgate-Lamar Fellowship by the Center in 2015 and a Career Advancement Fellowship in 2022, will bring the playful, experiential, and provocative solo exhibition of textiles and inflatable sculptures to the Bresler Family Gallery beginning July 26, 2024 through March 29, 2025.

Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.

Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”

Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.

RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.

As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”

“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”

See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.

# # #
ABOUT CENTER FOR CRAFT Founded in 1996, the Center for Craft’s mission is to resource, catalyze, and amplify how and why craft matters. As a 501(c)3 national nonprofit that increases access to craft by empowering and resourcing artists, organizations, and communities through grants, fellowships and programs that bring people together. The Center is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential organizations working on behalf of craft in the United States. For more information, visit www.centerforcraft.org.
The Totem: Celebrating Family, Spirit & Culture
Jan 22 @ 10:00 am – Jan 31 @ 6:00 pm
UpMarket Gallery & Events

UpMarket Gallery, downtown Asheville’s newest gallery and event space, is hosting its inaugural art show– The Totem: Celebrating Family, Spirit & Culture. Ten Asheville artists offer unique interpretations of totems, exploring family, spirit, and cultural themes. Through various mediums and styles, these modern totems invite viewers to reflect on their connections to family and heritage. Runs December 11 – January 31st
We welcome you to experience this captivating show in our newly restored space. Also housed within our thoughtfully updated building is the Dog & Pony Show, a curated collection of distinctive decor and gifts—perfect for your holiday shopping!

American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection
Jan 22 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection features more than 100 works of art by renowned American artists. The exhibition beautifully illustrates distinctive styles and thought-provoking art explored by American artists over the past two centuries. Though many objects from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection have been on view at other museums, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, this exhibition features the best of the collection brought together in one location. The exhibition begins with Colonial-era portraits by masters, such as Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale, and then moves on to highlight the development of mid-19th-century landscape painting. Viewers will discover works depicting the United States from coast to coast by artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Francis Copsey, and even a monumental arctic scene by William Bradford.

Forces of Nature
Jan 22 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Ceramic artists throughout history have become masters of all four elements—creating clay from a mixture of earth and water to shape their work, drying it in air, and hardening it in fire. Throughout this process, the artist decides which aspects of the work will be tightly controlled, and when the elements can step in to leave nature’s mark. This exhibition traces the historical, stylistic, and conceptual origins of work that either embraces or refuses the element of chance in ceramics, looking at modern and contemporary work made in Western North Carolina.

OLD-TIME JAM Old-Time Mountain + Folk Music
Jan 22 @ 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Jack of the Wood


Grab some dinner and a pint while enjoying our long-running Old-Time jam! Featuring many talented musicians from the local WNC area, our traditional Appalachian mountain music jam runs from 5-9pm every Wednesday night at Jack of the Wood!

Antler Hill Village Illumination
Jan 22 @ 5:30 pm – 11:45 pm
Biltmore Estate

Included with admission

Bask in the glow of a glittering cascade of lights illuminating trees, buildings, and the pathways that connect Antler Hill Village’s unique shops and restaurants. Also adorned with cheerful lights: our relaxing Winery, where complimentary tastings await. Don’t miss this must-see part of the Biltmore evening experience!

Jeeves Saves the Day
Jan 22 @ 7:30 pm
NC Stage Company

Once again, Bertie finds himself suffering the slings and arrows of misfortune at the hands of his relatives, caught between his fierce Aunt Agatha, his plaintive cousin Egbert, a saucy jazz singer, and his future father-in-law. Another priceless predicament calling upon the redoubtable Jeeves to save the day.

Performances of Jeeves Saves the Day will be held on the days and times listed below. The lobby and concessions area will open one hour prior to showtime. Concessions may be taken into the theatre during the performance.

January 22 – February 16, 2025

Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 7:30

Sundays at 2pm

Friday 1/24 and 1/31 at 7:30pm

Friday 2/7 and 2/14 at 2pm AND 7:30

Jeeves Saves the Day
Jan 22 @ 7:30 pm – Feb 16 @ 2:00 pm
North Carolina Stage Company

Once again, Bertie finds himself suffering the slings and arrows of misfortune at the hands of his relatives, caught between his fierce Aunt Agatha, his plaintive cousin Egbert, a saucy jazz singer, and his future father-in-law. Another priceless predicament calling upon the redoubtable Jeeves to save the day.

LIFE BE LIFIN’ STARRING MONÉT X CHANGE
Jan 22 @ 8:00 pm
The Orange Peel

Monét X Change never wanted to be a drag queen. She never wanted to be an opera singer either. Now an R&B singing, theatre writing, comedic triple threat, Monét explains on stage with just herself and a mic how she became those exact things. With the ability to make audiences cry as quickly as she makes them laugh, Monét X Change guides her audiences through a poignant, darkly humorous coming-of-age story in her newest one woman show, “Life Be Lifin.’” Directed by BenDeLaCreme

VIP Upgrade packages available at www.obsessedwith.co

 Show: 8pm | Doors: 7pm
Ages 18+
The Strumbellas with Wildermiss
Jan 22 @ 8:00 pm
The Grey Eagle

The Grey Eagle and Worthwhile Sounds Present:

Blind Pilot with Dean Johnson

All Ages
Wednesday, January 22
Doors: 7pm // Show: 8pm
$29.25 to $120.92

The First Blind Pilot album in eight years, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain emerged from a period of artistic crisis and the radical transformation of their creative ecosystem. “I went through a few years where I wasn’t able to write—I tried therapy, I read books on writer’s block, I went on writing trips, but nothing was helping,” says Israel Nebeker, frontman for the Oregon-bred band. After stepping back and reimagining his songwriting approach, Nebeker challenged himself to write an entire album in a month, then brought those songs to his bandmates with a newfound sense of receptivity. “I told myself that whatever songs came through in that month would be for the love of the band and music we make together,” says Nebeker. “Instead of being controlling in the studio, I wanted to let the songs live and breathe with the band as an entity. By the time we finished, it was the most joy we’d ever had in making an album together.”

Thursday, January 23, 2025
Soprana Rooftop Cucina Restaurant Week
Jan 23 all-day
Soprana Rooftop Cucina

Join us at Soprana Rooftop Cucina for a prefixe menu special. The opportunity to try favorite salads, pizzettes and deserts all for $30 – it doesn’t get much better than that.

Soprana Rooftop Cucina is open Monday – Thursday from 5pm-10pm; Friday – Sunday from 12pm-10pm. The restaurant is located on the rooftop of Embassy Suites by Hilton Asheville Downtown (192 Haywood Street). For more information and upcoming events, visit www.sopranarooftop.com and follow on Instagram @SopranaRooftop. Enjoy complimentary parking during your stay. To book your reservation, call 828.333.7006.

Our Voice
Jan 23 @ 6:00 am
Hampton Inn Hotel and Suites
Our Voice, a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual violence and human trafficking, invites the community to participate in a series of free educational events in Buncombe, McDowell, and Transylvania Counties. This event is designed to empower participants with knowledge and tools to identify and respond to human trafficking in our region.
Attendees will gain:
An understanding of what human trafficking looks like in WNC.
Insights into red flags that may indicate trafficking situations.
Knowledge about traffickers and the vulnerabilities they exploit.
Information on resources and organizations available to help in our region.
Max Adrian: RIPSTOP
Jan 23 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft
The Center for Craft is thrilled to announce the opening of Max Adrian: RIPSTOP. Adrian (he/they), a textile artist who was awarded a Windgate-Lamar Fellowship by the Center in 2015 and a Career Advancement Fellowship in 2022, will bring the playful, experiential, and provocative solo exhibition of textiles and inflatable sculptures to the Bresler Family Gallery beginning July 26, 2024 through March 29, 2025.

Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.

Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”

Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.

RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.

As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”

“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”

See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.

# # #
ABOUT CENTER FOR CRAFT Founded in 1996, the Center for Craft’s mission is to resource, catalyze, and amplify how and why craft matters. As a 501(c)3 national nonprofit that increases access to craft by empowering and resourcing artists, organizations, and communities through grants, fellowships and programs that bring people together. The Center is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential organizations working on behalf of craft in the United States. For more information, visit www.centerforcraft.org.
American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection
Jan 23 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection features more than 100 works of art by renowned American artists. The exhibition beautifully illustrates distinctive styles and thought-provoking art explored by American artists over the past two centuries. Though many objects from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection have been on view at other museums, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, this exhibition features the best of the collection brought together in one location. The exhibition begins with Colonial-era portraits by masters, such as Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale, and then moves on to highlight the development of mid-19th-century landscape painting. Viewers will discover works depicting the United States from coast to coast by artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Francis Copsey, and even a monumental arctic scene by William Bradford.

Forces of Nature
Jan 23 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Ceramic artists throughout history have become masters of all four elements—creating clay from a mixture of earth and water to shape their work, drying it in air, and hardening it in fire. Throughout this process, the artist decides which aspects of the work will be tightly controlled, and when the elements can step in to leave nature’s mark. This exhibition traces the historical, stylistic, and conceptual origins of work that either embraces or refuses the element of chance in ceramics, looking at modern and contemporary work made in Western North Carolina.

IBN Biz Lunch – Woodfin NC
Jan 23 @ 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
The Village Porch

Incredible Business Networking: IBN Biz Lunch – Woodfin

4th Thursday monthly. 11:30am-1pm, The Village Porch (https://www.thevillageporch.com), 51 N. Merrimon Ave, Woodfin 28804

Meeting Leaders:
Diane Simmons, eXp Realty (https://www.dianesellsashevillehomes.com)
Joel Thum, Joel Thum CPA (https://www.thumcpa.com)
Charlotte Fitzpatrick, Prime Lending (https://lo.primelending.com/cfitzpatrick)

Why Attend IBN Biz Lunches?
Free To Attend, No Dues Or Fees
No Membership Required
No Attendance Requirements
No Category Restrictions
No Exclusions – All Inclusive!
Buy Food/Drink If You Wish (Optional)
All are invited to attend and promote their business, products, and services, and meet new referral contacts. Bring a big stack of business cards / flyers and invite your business contacts to attend.
Have a Door Prize? (optional) Bring one if you like.
Incredible Business Networking – Western North Carolina is Sponsored by the following fine companies that make it possible for everyone else to attend for free!:

Mr. Rooter Plumbing WNC
https://www.mrrooter.com/asheville

One Health Direct Primary Care
https://www.onehealthdpc.com

PMI Mountain & Main Property Management
https://www.ashevillepropertymanagementinc.net

Big Frog Custom T-Shirts & More

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Pisgah Roofing and Restoration

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Asheville Restaurant Week
Jan 23 @ 12:00 pm
All over Asheville

Double the deliciousness – Asheville Restaurant Week returns January 21-27 & February 17-23!

For many, the delicious culinary creations of local restaurants are a big part of what makes Asheville special. Asheville Restaurant Week celebrates Asheville’s great food scene. Show your favorite restaurants some love or try someplace new!

Check back for additional menus/special offerings.

Asheville Restaurant Week – Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce

Antler Hill Village Illumination
Jan 23 @ 5:30 pm – 11:45 pm
Biltmore Estate

Included with admission

Bask in the glow of a glittering cascade of lights illuminating trees, buildings, and the pathways that connect Antler Hill Village’s unique shops and restaurants. Also adorned with cheerful lights: our relaxing Winery, where complimentary tastings await. Don’t miss this must-see part of the Biltmore evening experience!

Golden Folk Sessions
Jan 23 @ 7:00 pm
The Grey Eagle

The Grey Eagle and Worthwhile Sounds Present

Golden Folk Sessions

All Ages

Thursday, January 23

Doors: 6pm // Show: 7pm
$12.30 to $29.25

FULLY SEATED SHOW

LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE

Golden Folk Sessions (formerly Open Folk AVL) offers an intimate, carefully curated listening experience that celebrates the art of original music. Each event showcases six handpicked artists, performing three-song sets in a quiet, seated environment where the music takes center stage. To add a sense of surprise and discovery, the lineup is revealed only when the show begins. Running from 7–9 PM, these early shows create the perfect evening for music lovers who value live performances and a good night’s rest.

City Dance
Jan 23 @ 7:30 pm
Landmark Hal

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.

Jeeves Saves the Day
Jan 23 @ 7:30 pm
NC Stage Company

Once again, Bertie finds himself suffering the slings and arrows of misfortune at the hands of his relatives, caught between his fierce Aunt Agatha, his plaintive cousin Egbert, a saucy jazz singer, and his future father-in-law. Another priceless predicament calling upon the redoubtable Jeeves to save the day.

Performances of Jeeves Saves the Day will be held on the days and times listed below. The lobby and concessions area will open one hour prior to showtime. Concessions may be taken into the theatre during the performance.

January 22 – February 16, 2025

Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 7:30

Sundays at 2pm

Friday 1/24 and 1/31 at 7:30pm

Friday 2/7 and 2/14 at 2pm AND 7:30

Friday, January 24, 2025
Candlelight: A Tribute to Queen and More
Jan 24 all-day
Asheville Masonic Temple

Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live, multi-sensory musical experience to awe-inspiring locations like never seen before in Asheville. Get your tickets now to discover the music of Queen and more at The Asheville Masonic Temple under the gentle glow of candlelight.

General Info
Venue: Asheville Masonic Temple
Dates and times: select your dates/times directly in the ticket selector
Duration: 60 minutes (doors open 45 mins prior to the start time and late entry is not permitted)
Age requirement: 8 years old or older. Anyone under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult
Accessibility: please contact us for more information on accessibility
View the FAQs for this event here
Seating is assigned on a first come first served basis in each zone
If you would like to book a private concert or buy regular tickets for a large group (+30 people), click here
Check out all the Candlelight concerts in Asheville
To treat your friends and family to a Candlelight gift card, click here

Tentative Program

Queen:

“Don’t Stop Me Now”
“Killer Queen”
“Somebody to Love”
“Love of My Life”
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
“Under Pressure” (Queen and David Bowie)
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“Fat Bottomed Girls”
“We Will Rock You”
“Another One Bites the Dust”
“We Are the Champions”
Other Works:

Gianni Schicchi, “O Mio Babbino Caro” – Giacomo Puccini
La Boheme, SC 67, Act 2: “Quando m’en Vo’ (Musetta’s Waltz)” – Giacomo Puccini
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K. 620, Act 2: “Der Hölle Rache Kocht in Meinem Herzen (Queen of the Night Aria)” – W. A. Mozart
Performers

Opal String Quartet
Seating Map

Candlelight: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & More
Jan 24 all-day
Asheville Masonic Temple

Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live, multi-sensory musical experience to awe-inspiring locations like never seen before in Asheville. Get your tickets now to discover Vivaldi and more at The Asheville Masonic Temple under the gentle glow of candlelight.

General Info
Venue: Asheville Masonic Temple
Dates and times: select your dates/times directly in the ticket selector
Duration: 60 minutes (doors open 45 mins prior to the start time and late entry is not permitted)
Age requirement: 8 years old or older. Anyone under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult
Accessibility: please contact us for more information on accessibility
View the FAQs for this event here
Seating is assigned on a first come first served basis in each zone
If you would like to book a private concert or buy regular tickets for a large group (+30 people), click here
Check out all the Candlelight concerts in Asheville
To treat your friends and family to a Candlelight gift card, click here

Tentative Program

“The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 No. 1 RV 269: “Spring”” – Vivaldi
“The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 No. 2 RV 315: “Summer”” – Vivaldi
“Thaïs: Méditation” – Jules Massenet
“The Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas: Verano Porteño” – Astor Piazzolla
“The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 No. 3 RV 293: “Autumn”” – Vivaldi
“The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 No. 4 RV 297: “Winter”” – Vivaldi
Performers

Opal String Quartet

Soprana Rooftop Cucina Restaurant Week
Jan 24 all-day
Soprana Rooftop Cucina

Join us at Soprana Rooftop Cucina for a prefixe menu special. The opportunity to try favorite salads, pizzettes and deserts all for $30 – it doesn’t get much better than that.

Soprana Rooftop Cucina is open Monday – Thursday from 5pm-10pm; Friday – Sunday from 12pm-10pm. The restaurant is located on the rooftop of Embassy Suites by Hilton Asheville Downtown (192 Haywood Street). For more information and upcoming events, visit www.sopranarooftop.com and follow on Instagram @SopranaRooftop. Enjoy complimentary parking during your stay. To book your reservation, call 828.333.7006.

Max Adrian: RIPSTOP
Jan 24 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft
The Center for Craft is thrilled to announce the opening of Max Adrian: RIPSTOP. Adrian (he/they), a textile artist who was awarded a Windgate-Lamar Fellowship by the Center in 2015 and a Career Advancement Fellowship in 2022, will bring the playful, experiential, and provocative solo exhibition of textiles and inflatable sculptures to the Bresler Family Gallery beginning July 26, 2024 through March 29, 2025.

Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.

Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”

Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.

RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.

As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”

“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”

See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.

# # #
ABOUT CENTER FOR CRAFT Founded in 1996, the Center for Craft’s mission is to resource, catalyze, and amplify how and why craft matters. As a 501(c)3 national nonprofit that increases access to craft by empowering and resourcing artists, organizations, and communities through grants, fellowships and programs that bring people together. The Center is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential organizations working on behalf of craft in the United States. For more information, visit www.centerforcraft.org.
American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection
Jan 24 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection features more than 100 works of art by renowned American artists. The exhibition beautifully illustrates distinctive styles and thought-provoking art explored by American artists over the past two centuries. Though many objects from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection have been on view at other museums, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, this exhibition features the best of the collection brought together in one location. The exhibition begins with Colonial-era portraits by masters, such as Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale, and then moves on to highlight the development of mid-19th-century landscape painting. Viewers will discover works depicting the United States from coast to coast by artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Francis Copsey, and even a monumental arctic scene by William Bradford.

Forces of Nature
Jan 24 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Ceramic artists throughout history have become masters of all four elements—creating clay from a mixture of earth and water to shape their work, drying it in air, and hardening it in fire. Throughout this process, the artist decides which aspects of the work will be tightly controlled, and when the elements can step in to leave nature’s mark. This exhibition traces the historical, stylistic, and conceptual origins of work that either embraces or refuses the element of chance in ceramics, looking at modern and contemporary work made in Western North Carolina.

IBN Breakfast Club – Asheville NC (West)
Jan 24 @ 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Regina's

Incredible Business Networking: IBN Breakfast Club – West Asheville

4th Friday monthly. 9am – 10am, Regina’s Westside (https://reginaswestside.com), 1400 Patton Ave, Asheville.

Meeting Leaders:
Ana Hernandez and Jennifer McClellan, Savvy Post Marketing (https://www.savvypostmarketing.com)
Super Rob, The Super Signguy (https://www.thesupersignguy.com)

Why Attend IBN Breakfast Club?
Free To Attend, No Dues Or Fees
No Membership Required
No Attendance Requirements
No Category Restrictions
No Exclusions – All Inclusive!
Buy Food/Drink If You Wish (Optional)
All are invited to attend and promote their business, products, and services, and meet new referral contacts. Bring a big stack of business cards / flyers and invite your business contacts to attend.
Have a Door Prize? (optional) Bring one if you like.
Incredible Business Networking – Western North Carolina is Sponsored by the following fine companies that make it possible for everyone else to attend for free!:

Mr. Rooter Plumbing WNC
https://www.mrrooter.com/asheville

One Health Direct Primary Care
https://www.onehealthdpc.com

PMI Mountain & Main Property Management
https://www.ashevillepropertymanagementinc.net

Big Frog Custom T-Shirts & More

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