Listening Session
Thursday, December 16th, 2021 at 7PM EST
BMCM+AC {120 College Street}
We are excited to announce the 2021 Black Mountain College Radio Artists, selected by BMCM+AC, AshevilleFM + Make Noise for a series of innovative works for the radio inspired by the experimentation of BMC artists. This year’s artists are based in Western North Carolina, with a focus on pushing the limitations of sound art, music, and performance.
The BMC Radio Artists’ work will be featured in various programs on Asheville FM with an exclusive interview:
August 27, 2021: Mike Holmes (Nostalgianoid)
November 19, 2021: Thom Nguyen
December 13, 2021: Michael Hatch
At the completion of the broadcasts, a culminating listening session will be held at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center to celebrate the work of the five radio artists (Thursday, December 16th at 7PM).
Cilla Vee is Claire Elizabeth Barratt, an international interdisciplinary artist and founding director of Cilla Vee Life Arts. She holds an MFA from the Transart Institute of Creative Research, where she developed her performance pedagogy Living Art. She is converting her Asheville home into The Center for Connection + Collaboration.
Michael Hatch has been producing audio works for over three decades, in addition to his practices in glass art and craft-based research at such spaces as Penland School of Craft, VCU, and Pilchuck Glass School. Hatch received an MA in Craft Studies from Warren Wilson College. Hatch’s glasswork and demonstrations are featured at Crucible Glassworks in Weaverville, NC.
Nostalgianoid is Asheville native Mike Holmes (he/him), a man of many coats who has established himself as an unpredictable artist with his emphasis on keeping every live set fresh and new. He’s been involved with a myriad of music scenes in this town since finishing college in 2014, whether it be producing for other artists, photographing shows, or playing in various bands of different genres. Now, he focuses on pushing his own craft and sound while also being a member of the local skateboard community aiding in the upkeep of our local DIY skatepark.
Thom Nguyen is an Asheville, North Carolina-based improviser and drummer of MANAS and more. Producing energetic bursts and invoking a sensitivity to space that one often associates with Free-Jazz and New Music percussion, Nguyen’s approach elegantly bridges works of sonic sculpture with a punk aesthetic of immediacy, aggression, and playfulness.
Zazie Productions (they/them) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist living in Asheville, North Carolina, where they are a rising tenth grader at the School of Inquiry and Life Sciences. Zazie has been interested in sound art and avant-garde music production since age nine and it was actually Black Mountain College’s experimental performance history that drew Zazie and their mom and sister to move to the area. Drawing from Cage’s concept of indeterminacy, Zazie layers found objects, transposed recording speeds and tempos, multiple arrangements and phrasings, homemade instruments, percussive patterns, micro-rhythms, and glitches into increasingly intricate sound collages to reveal unexpected and kinetic elements of the original composition placed out of context.