The Overlook with Matt Peiken

Choral groups were among the hardest-hit and slowest to rebound from the pandemic. Two of the region’s enduring choirs are still finding their footing both artistically and in the wider public.Today, we hear from the choirs’ two artistic directors—Kyle Ritter of Asheville Symphony Chorus and Emily Floyd of Asheville Youth Choirs. They’re performing together April 27 at Firs

Just as Asheville’s arts community has evolved, so too has ArtsAVL. It changed its name just a year and a half ago from the Asheville Area Arts Council and, even before the pandemic, refocused its mission from service to advocacy. My guest today is Katie Cornell, executive director now in her fifth year with ArtsAVL. We talk about that mission shift and the work that goes into ga

Want to know what’s happening with McCormick Field, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and the Western North Carolina Nature Center? My guest has the answers.Chris Corl is General Manager and Director of Community & Regional Entertainment Facilities for the City of Asheville. We go into detail about the upcoming trip around the bases for McCormick Field’s renovation, including what’

Asheville is very much a music town—not just for musicians, but also for fans, as evidenced by the six record stores dotting the city. As we approach the annual Record Store Day, April 20, we talk with Mark Capon of Harvest Records, Jesse McSwain of Static-Age Records and Morgan Markowitz of Earth River Records. We talk about the evolution of their shops—for instance, Static-Ag

Downtown business owners, workers and residents spent a lot of 2023 imploring Asheville officials to get a handle on crime, trash and vagrancy. All along, many were pressing to take matters into their own hands by working with city leaders to form what’s called a business improvement district.A business improvement district—or BID—is a tax assessment that pays for services on

D. Tyrell McGirt says his career path was blazed as a 10-year-old in Greensboro, when his mother signed him up for a lifeguarding class. He ran parks and recreation departments in Alabama, Arizona and Alaska before moving two years ago to lead the department in Asheville.In this conversation, McGirt talks through his department's recent decision to keep Malvern Hills Park Pool

Seventy years ago, Black Mountain College was a petri dish for experimental art, sound and performance. It was also the birthplace of so-called “happenings”—events where practitioners strived to transcend the bounds of existence and expression.Today, the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center throws an annual “(Re)Happening.” The 12th (Re)Happening is April 20. Art

Middle housing is all the rage in planning and urban development circles—that is, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, clusters of homes with no garages but maybe a shared park, in walkable neighborhoods close to transit. Basically, it's housing with many of the functions of traditional single-family homes but developed with equity, the environment and affordability in mind.This

The Buncombe County District Attorney’s office prosecutes dozens of cases every week, from capital murder to trivial infractions. But DA Todd Williams seems at least a bit frustrated by the public’s lingering interest in what, on paper, resulted in guilty verdicts for misdemeanor trespassing. Some are holding up the charges as veiled attacks on freedom of the press.Williams, in

Barbie Angell is a poet and storyteller, children’s book author and emcee. Threading all of it, she’s a survivor. She’s candid about the range of abuse she experienced throughout her youth, and a quarter-century of ongoing psychological abuse she alleges from a domestic partner.The last few years have been particularly difficult for my guest today. While the pandemic brought