From her earliest memories, Janet Oliver was different than every other child she knew in her suburb of Little Rock, Ark. Her father was a white civil rights lawyer, her mother black, and the adults around her—particularly the women in her matriarchal family—pushed her to greatness. “The women around me said you will get a great education, you will leave Arkansas and you will have a life,” she said. “I was self-directed, I was opinionated, I was articulated and I was obedient, and I think they

After a season devoted to auditioning six finalists, the Asheville Symphony Orchestra has tapped Darko Butorac as its next music director. Butorac succeeds Daniel Meyer , who departed the orchestra after the end of the most recent season, his 12th in Asheville. Butorac, 40, began his life in classical music as a cellist, but had his first chance to conduct an orchestra when he was 17. From then on, he knew he wanted a life on the podium. “It’s a kind of a beautiful climb through the career ranks

It’s hard to miss Sharon Cooper on the dance floor. Her expression is almost always wide-eyed, focused and intense. Even her slowest movements carry urgency. But then there’s Cooper, the pediatric nurse. With her young patients, she’s smiling, animated and tender. “I’ve always been interested in it, and always very interested in the body and the way it works and muscle systems,” Cooper said of nursing.

Around 11am Wednesday, Pattiy Torno stood on the steel mesh deck of the open gallery and meeting space at 14 Riverside Drive, looked out over the brush at the rising tan-brown waters of the French Broad River and sighed. “If the river gets to 11 feet, I’m moving my stuff. It’s that simple,” she said. “I have a storage locker about two blocks away specifically for this purpose.”

Before she went by the singular name of Lytingale, Lois Henrickson envisioned a career fronting a folk rock band. “Any day now I’m going to be discovered. Don’t you know this?” she said with a laugh.

The suicides last year of Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington touched millions around the world. But as someone struggling with his own depressive anxiety, soon to be 18-year-old Ian Ridenhour couldn’t help viewing their paths as a potential harbinger for his own.

Like the swallows that return every year to San Juan Capistrano, David Wilcox ’s most devoted followers — it’s an insult to refer to them as mere fans — return every spring to Kanuga Lake, outside Hendersonville. Wilcox Weekend , as it’s known, is an annual ritual drawing a couple dozen people from around the country, along with some of their children and several of their dogs. The eighth Wilcox Weekend was May 4-6. People come to hear Wilcox and his friends perform, swap stories about what

Gavin Geoffrey Dillard has a story to tell. “I ended up being in a relationship with David Geffen,” he said. And another. “I wrote comedy for Joan Rivers, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Vincent Price, Peggy Lee.” And another. “I was the No.1 gay porn star in the world for two years.” And another. “I’ve seen flying saucers up very close,” he said. “I’ve been taken to a place where there’s a wormhole and seen many ships go back and forth.” And another. “In L.A. I became famous as the naked poet,

When Brie Capone talks about her roots in music, she can seem a little impressionable. “I had a very serious crush on John Mayer, and he went to Berklee,” Capone said. “For me, that was definitely a marker of ‘Oh, musicians go to Berklee.’ OK, I should definitely do that if I want to do this fulltime.” And years later, she recorded her debut album at Asheville’s Echo Mountain studios because she learned the band Dawes recorded “Stories Don’t End” album there. “I had this moment of ‘Well, I love

Corey Parlamento’s music sounds like it doesn’t have much structure. His songs wander and flow, and if you find yourself lost in the textures, you’re not alone. “When I’m practicing with my band, they’re like 'Let's go back to the ... Chorus? I don’t know. Bridge? I don’t know. Pre-chorus? I don’t know!’” Parlamento said. It isn’t that he doesn’t understand the recipe for Western pop music. As a teen in Boynton Beach, Fla., Parlamento played guitar and sang in metal and emo bands. Today, on the