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Broadcasting The Art And Culture Of Asheville To The World

Show hosts to WPVM consistently work to develop quality content for the listeners. There is something exceptional about the people and the programming produced by those folks on our show page. These are special people who have a deep passion for their chosen field. Some have been collecting and gathering knowledge since childhood and have a burning desire to share it with the community, and this passion and commitment is evident in their shows on WPVM.

If you have a deep passion for music, the arts, books, or desire to do programming that reflects the unique Asheville community, we would love to have you consider creating a show to be aired on WPVM. You can be one of those very special show hosts. New Hosts Information Page

Retro Cocktail

The Retro Cocktail Hour with host Darrell Brogdon serves up music that’s “shaken, not stirred” every week from the Underground Martini Bunker

Friday 8:00-10:00PM

HiWay 61

Pile into the Blues Cadillac for a trip through the blues landscape.  Hear the best of the past, present and future of the blues, the music from which all others originate. Old Blues, New Blues, All Kinds of Blues

Story Parlor

Story Parlor is a cooperative arts venue featuring storytelling and the exploration of the human condition through community-driven programming.

10,000 Good Songs

Music Documentarian Paul Ingles hosts a weekly mix of music from his multi-genre personal collectio

Russ

For 35 years Russ has worked as a professional musician playing many different styles of music including Jazz, Rock, Country, Gospel, Blues, R&B, Broadway shows and Symphonic music.

Navé WPVMFM.ORG Twice 5 Miles

James Navé is a native of Asheville who has made a giant reputation for himself in the world of spoken word, storytelling and poetry.

Dirty Spoon

Jonathan Ammons is an essayist and journalist, bartender, musician, Southern native, and avid traveller.

Lester the Nightfly - PJ Ewing

According to program host, PJ Ewing, your new favorite songs are awaiting you on Lester the Nightfly. All the way from Manhattan, NYC this is the show for the music aficionado.

Brody Hunt WPVMFM.ORG Asheville, NC

Brody Hunt brings his incredible knowledge and unstoppable enthusiasm for the great recordings of a grand age in the U.S. to this wonderfully entertaining show.

Chicago Symphony

ailed as the number one US Orchestra by the venerable British publication Gramophone, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra continues this quarter with more concerts from Symphony Center, the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

NY Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic plays a leading cultural role in New York City, the United States, and the world.

Each season the Orchestra connects with up to 50 million music lovers through live concerts in New York and around the world; international broadcasts on television, radio, and online; recordings; and education programs.

Cruisin' the Decades

“Cruisin’ The Decades” is a 100-year journey through recorded popular music history. It is like an audio time capsule, playing one song per decade beginning in 1920 and running through the 2020s. We cover all styles and genres: jazz, blues, folk, standards/songbook, swing, R&B, early rock & roll, country, psychedelic, modern rock, punk, new wave, and alternative.

American Routes

American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans
“In the history of American radio, no series has come close to Nick Spitzer’s
 American Routes in exploring the many streams of this nation’s music.”
— Nat Hentoff, Wall Street Journal

Full-Disclosure-WPVM-FM-103.7 AVL

Covering Wall Street, international finance, and emerging markets.

Election 2022

Video and audio files of interviews or forums with local and regional candidates

Todd-Weatherly-In-One-Ear-WPVMFM-103.7 AVL

Todd Weatherly lives in Western North Carolina just outside of Asheville with his family and a small fleet of mountain bikes.

Keith-Held-Rock-Stone-Radio

I have been collecting reggae lp’s for about 30 years. It has become a passion of mine my entire life.

McNair Ezzard WPVM FM 103.7 FM Asheville, NC

Host McNair Ezzard provides an in-depth look into the people and organizations, locally, nationally and internationally, who are creating a world that works for all.

A Better World

Remix

Remix is the best podcasts, documentaries, and stories, handpicked from both independent creators and our podcast network Radiotopia.

Dawn-Marie-Westmoreland---The-Empowered-Whistleblower

Dawn Westmoreland believes that employees and employers deserve to work in safe and respectful work environments.

David Basse

Explore jazz’s rich living history on community and public radio stations around the country.

https://wpvmfm.org/jazz-with-dave-basse/

Thom Hartman

Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talkshow host whose shows are available in over a half-billion homes worldwide. He’s the New York Times bestselling, 4-times Project Censored Award winning author of 24 books in print in 17 languages on five continents.

Michio Kaku

Exploration with Michio Kaku, is an hour long radio program on science, technology, politics, and the environment. It is broadcast each week on WBAI New York City (99.5 FM), and re-aired on stations across the country via the Ku National Radio Satellite.

Laura Flanders logo

Longtime broadcaster, Laura Flanders hosts the weekly “Laura Flanders Show” which is available on TV and radio. The LF Show features in depth conversations about change and change-making with leading thinkers and doers, as well as commentaries and field reports. Flanders was the longtime host of CounterSpin and RadioNation.

Harry Shearer

Vogue magazine describes Le Show as “wildly clever, iconoclastic stew of talk, music, political commentary, readings of inadvertently funny public documents or trade magazines and scripted skits.”

Join Asheville’s #1 Food Fan, Stu Helm, as he discusses nothing but FOOOOD! Stu has lived in Asheville since 2005, and has been writing about the local food scene since 2013.

Avl Grooves

WPVM’s daily show of local and regional music. There is a reason Asheville’s music vibes have gotten national and international attention. Rolling Stone’s article on the Asheville vibe…“Asheville is becoming one of the country’s most vital music hubs.”

Adagio Radio

Drew Darling brings his weekly show to WPVM…the absolute best in deeply moving music.

Live at White Rock Hall

A dynamic hybrid of poetry, music, and history woven together into an exciting narrative. Each show has a theme that sets the poetry and songs in vivid dialogue with one another.

Democracy Now

Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S.

Ben Vaughn

An eclectic mix of music curated by producer, composer, recording artist Ben Vaughn.

Rock, blues, jazz, folk, soul, R & B, country, bossa nova, movie soundtracks, easy listening and more, all peppered with Vaughn’s twisted musicological slant.
Archived Shows on these links

Out of the Woods

Out of the Woods is an independently-produced weekly radio program of mostly acoustic music. The show is heard internationally on a variety of great FM and online radio stations.

The programs are available free for broadcast to non-commercial stations on request at outofthewoodsradio@gmail.com

Friday 10:00 AM -12:00 PM

Bill Bolens

I produce an eclectic program of Louisiana and roots music on WHYR every Sunday evening from 7-9pCentral. The show originates from the Banana Plantation somewhere in Mid City Baton Rouge, Louisiana, expect to hear everything from Baton Rouge Blues, Cajun, the lowlife New Orleans funk, local, regional, who knows where dat one came from and a whole lot more…..Bill Bolens

Robert DTR

Down The Road airs on WPVN 103.7 every Wednesday @ 10:00 PM. The show celebrates the music and musicians of New Orleans and surrounding areas, past and present. We play traditional jazz, brass band, blues, funk, soul, rock, r&b, and more. The show originates at  WHYR 96.9 fm in Baton Rouge

Mark Drenek

All aboard the blues train!

Every week, the big blue train we call the Blue Light Central rumbles out of the station for an hour-long ride through a landscape of blues, classic R&B, soul, gospel, zydeco and low-down boogieMark Drnek is your ticket agent, porter, engineer, brakeman and conductor on a weekly excursion through the vast music landscape.

Christopher-Rush-That-Record-Guy-Graceland

Classic Rock and Pop from the 50’s through the 80’s with a REAL living, breathing DJ.

Paul Ingles

Music specials producer Paul Ingles presents the best from his years of documentaries, appreciation programs, tributes, interviews, theme shows and fun music mixes

Sebastian-Matthews WPVM

Sebastian is the author of a half dozen books and loves working on collages and collaborating with book artists. He has lived with his family in Asheville since 2000 and teaches for the Great Smokies Writing Program out of UNC-Asheville.

rock & roll records

All the music that didn’t follow the genera or formulas because it was coming from that early muse that created rock and roll, that muse still works. Today’s musical culture still searches for that muse (and we prove it every week).

View show playlists here.

PeterAbzug

First Wave host, Peter D-A, takes you back to the genesis and evolution of Punk and New Wave from the 1970s and 80s as they liberated rock ‘n’ roll. It brings context to the music to understand why and from where Punk rock emerged and its importance in influencing bands into the 21st century.

Drop us a line at wpvmfirstwave@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!

Martha Bassett Show

The Martha Bassett Show is recorded live at the historic Reeves Theater in Elkin, NC. This weekly one-hour music program blends the fabric of the national roots and Americana scene with the rich artistry, history, and flair of North Carolina’s Piedmont region.

Gary Parky -trackter float

Adventures in Listening – Monday 3-5 PM

Musician and former curatorial assistant at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Gary Parky is a New Orleans ex-pat who moved to Asheville in 2020. Gary has produced an eclectic music show for WHIV for several years and joined the family of volunteer DJs for WPVM in 2023.

Choose Curious

“Try to be one of those on whom noting is lost,” wrote Henry James.  His advice from The Art of Fiction sums up the spirit of choosing to be curious. It’s a decision we can make about how we live our lives and do our work.

Research has shown that curiosity improves learning, strengthens decision making, ignites innovation and is essential to growth and transformation. The good news is: like a muscle, curiosity is something you can strengthen.

Eclectic

WPVM’s eclectic music collection includes nearly anything, including alternative rock, jazz, classic rock, instrumental and spoken word. You might hear an interview with Stevie Ray Vaughn or Wynton Marsalis mixed in with a piece by one of Asheville’s great musicians in a matter of 15 minutes. Music from the mid-50s through 1990s.
Use this link to view the playlists

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Each week 11 million U.S. listeners tune in to classical music on a radio in someone’s home or automobile– it is America’s dominant path to classical music.WPVM’s hours of delightful classical music on our station in a time of dramatic change, benefitting audiences on-air, online and in-person, and connecting classical music communities across the nation.

Enjoy nearly uninterrupted classical music from WPVM’s vast classical library.

To view the playlists use this link

Jazz is known the world over as America’s music, and for good reason. An enormous heritage of musical expression born from African American roots, jazz is easy to recognize but nearly impossible to explain. You know it when you hear it: soul-searing melodies, improvisational rhythms, and solo flights. It’s as smooth, cool, blue, red-hot, and vibrant as the people and communities that give it life.

To view the playlists use this link

Gospel Header

The absolute best of regional gospel music. Irma Thomas, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, Dixie Hummingbirds, Blind Boys of Alabama, Sister Mary Nelson, The Staple Singers, The Persuasions, Sam Cooke, and many more. We now have close to 4000 gospel tracks in our music library.
Past Playlist on this link

Window-WPVM-FM-103.7
Photo: Matt Hanson

INTERVIEW | John Matthias And Jay Auborn Talk About Combining Music And Physics On Ghost Notes

Classical Music

L-R: Jay Auborn and John Matthias collaborate in the studio (Photo courtesy of the artists)
The twin passions of music and science come together in a new release by composer John Matthias and Jay Auborn. As a violinist, physicist and composer, John’s work is noted for its blend of traditional and futuristic elements.
As they say in their liner notes, the duo “gave their computer limbs, and unleashed its agency”. We asked a few questions about how that works.
John Matthias and Jay Auborn
Award-winning composer and musician John Matthias has released four solo albums of his music on the Ninja Tune label. Along with his own work, he’s collaborated with many high profile artists, such as Radiohead on their studio album The Bends (1995).
As both musician and theoretical physicist, John Matthias was drawn to the element of futurism in his work. He is a member of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at the University of Plymouth. John was the co—winner of the UK PRS Foundation New Music Award in 2008 for The Fragmented Orchestra. An artificial spiking neural network is set up, with nodes in disparate locations, and which produce live audio streams according to the timing of the spikes along the network. It’s modeled after the way neurons fire off one after the other in the human brain.
John has performed at The Royal Opera House (London) and The Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), among other international venues, and written the score for a dozen feature films, among other projects.
On his new release Ghost Notes, he collaborates with British musician, record producer and sound artist Jay Auborn, along with some interesting technology, to essentially create electronic symphonies in miniature. Jay Auborn’s work has blended acoustic and electronic elements with an experimental edge even in conventional compositional modes. Along with his solo releases, he’s composition music for film.
The duo also collaborated on the answers to our questions.
L-R: Jay Auborn and John Matthias collaborate in the studio (Photo courtesy of the artists)
How did you come upon the tech that you use, involving solenoid magnets to essentially play the drums?
Ghost Notes started as a kind of live album experiment. We wanted to bring the electronic and acoustic elements of our music together in one space and in one process. To help us, we gave our computer limbs in the form of the solenoid hammers, so it could play acoustic drums and percussion alongside us, becoming a trio of sorts.
The tech isn’t particularly unique, and there are several products and home-made setups that use solenoids to play instruments or which are used in installations, for example. We were focused more on the creative implications and possibilities.
Ahead of the first experiments with the computer controlled drum kit, we asked ourselves, “If we could have any drummer in our band dead or alive, who would it be?” Max Roach came up, the American Jazz drummer, who worked with Charlie Parker in the 1940s. On All Hallow’s Eve pre-lockdown we fed a recording of a drum solo by Max Roach into the computer controlling the robot drummer. In turn, the drums came alive, reperforming his drum solo with haunting accuracy, as if Max was in the room with us. There was a sense of time collapsing through technology as Max hit a drum in the 50s which made its way through time and various technologies to be in the room with us. This experience inspired the name for the album.
After the initial experiment, we spent a week together recording in an old barn on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon, England. The robotic drummer would sometimes glitch out and play unexpected rhythms. We embraced these errors, and they became an exciting outside influence on our music, as if the machine had its own agency; John Cage’s Ghost in the machine. The resulting recording session became this album, a collection of human robotic collaboration through mini electronic symphonies.
The first track available from Ghost Notes:
[embedded content]
Does the robot use AI to process the source material you give it?
It doesn’t. The set-up is fairly crude, we are using pre-existing tools in a technical mashup, which makes the whole thing purposefully idiosyncratic. As an example, one of us would play an acoustic drum kit which is real time converted to midi control signals via the computer, then converted into voltages which fed into our electronic magnetic drum hammers on a second acoustic drum kit. The latency/time delay in the process would create an echo or delay as the 2nd drum kit mirrored what we played on the first. It’s a kind of digital shadow of ourselves. We think about the error in this process as a kind of external agency influencing the outcome of our music.
Is this something that could be performed live — i.e. if so, how would that work in real time?
Absolutely — this was kind of the whole point for us. The process was always real time. We are using microphones to record this stuff as it happens in the room. We have some shows coming up.
In the liner notes, the method is described as “extracting” rhythmic patterns from existing music — was that your original intention, or did it develop as you worked with the technology?
We did this early on to see what was possible with the setup, but it didn’t feel right, so we explored other uses as mentioned. We did extract rhythms from found sound recordings of rhythmic content or from recordings of us playing other instruments to see if we could use the process as a kind of transformational tool i.e. John’s violin part becomes a drum part by just taking the rhythmic structure and asking the robot drums to play it.
The tracks go through a variety of moods and styles. Do you begin with a concept in mind, or is your process more improvisational/intuitive?
We have always worked together in an improvisational manner, often within a conceptual framework so that there is a limiting factor to butt up against and work within. This makes it easier to be productive by setting some limits. At the same time we aren’t precious about the concept, and we have mentioned the John Cage idea ‘the idea is one thing and what happens is different’. We left the studio on Dartmoor with about 30 tracks made from improvising, and slowly we reduced it down little by little to [where] it felt like an album. We enjoy working with the music as an album as a whole rather than separate tracks, this perhaps encourages a variety of moods to co-exist rather than a collection of singles. In terms of styles we don’t think about genres much, we are trying to be free with our music and not conform too much.
Ghost Tracks will be released on April 7. You can sample it here.
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Anya Wassenberg is a Senior Writer and Digital Content Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an experienced freelance writer, blogger and writing instructor with OntarioLearn. Latest posts by Anya Wassenberg (see all)

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