Asheville

A thriving hub for the performing arts in western North Carolina, Asheville and the towns that surround it are great places to spend your time this summer. Start your explorations with a visit to the Keowee Chamber Music Festival, in its ninth summer season in Asheville June 9-21. This professional ensemble performs eclectic chamber music in historic and unusual settings, and gives audiences a deeper understanding by introducing the musical works as well as sharing important information about the composers and musical styles.

About an hour away, the Brevard Music Center is a summer institute and festival where 400 students, 75 guest artists and faculty members assemble to learn, teach, and perform. Its 73rd season June 26–August 9 includes more than 80 public concerts of orchestral, chamber and operatic repertoire featuring Russian pianist Van Cliburn and Gold Medalist Olga Kern. Maestro Keith Lockhart will also be joined by Steven Smith and Kraig Williams and other well-known conductors such as North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn, the Shepherd School of Music's Larry Rachleff and Wheeling Symphony Orchestra Music Director André Raphel Smith.

No matter what weekend you find yourself in the Asheville area this summer, pull up a lawn chair for Shindig on the Green, happening most Saturday evenings from July 4 through September 5. It's a celebration of traditional and old-time string bands, bluegrass, ballad singers, big circle mountain dancers and cloggers in downtown Asheville. Shindig on the Green takes a break during the downtown Bele Chere Festival, now in its 31st year, July 24–26 and again during the 82nd Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, the nation's longest running folk festival, July 30 through August 1. It showcases the best of the region's traditional and old-time musicians, ballad singers, mountain dance groups and cloggers at the Diana Wortham Theatre in downtown Asheville.

For more information about what to do and where to stay in and around Asheville, visit Explore Asheville and the Brevard/Transylvania Chamber of Commerce.