News

LOCAL BRIEFS: 3-day mountain music event, brass ensemble, Trails of St. John

Master fiddler Josh Goforth will perform at the first Winter Ramble.

By Lightning Reports, Published: February 10, 2026

Winter Ramble showcases mountain music

A weekend filled with Appalachian Mountain music is coming to Henderson County during the first Winter Ramble Feb. 27-March 1.

This inaugural event isn’t a fenced-in festival; it’s a three-day ramble through Hendersonville and Henderson County featuring traditional mountain music — the kind born from front porches, barns and dance halls across the Blue Ridge.

“The music that comes from these mountains draws on lots of influences — Scots-Irish, English, African, German and Indigenous traditions — and it’s unique to this part of the country,” says Ryan Taylor Price, a local musician who is the event producer. “We hope to bring people from all over to celebrate the culture and heritage of our area.”

Music halls, breweries, wineries and other small-stage venues enliven this late-winter weekend with a collection of bluegrass pickers, old-time string bands, country singer-songwriters, Americana and folk duos, and mountain storytellers.

Two dozen acts are set to perform. Headliners include Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Trey Hensley; chart-topping bluegrass quintet Unspoken Tradition; Asheville-based country-roots group Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters; master fiddler and storyteller Josh Goforth; and husband-and-wife Americana duo Chatham Rabbits.

“For three days, people can ramble across Henderson County, warmed with music shaped by tradition, collaboration and place — and blown away by the talent lighting up our stages,” says Michelle Owens, executive director of Visit Hendersonville.

Some events are free, others are ticketed. Visitors choose their own paths through a community alive with sounds that have echoed through these mountains for generations.

“We designed this event to showcase the area’s musical legacy,” Price says, “and share a little bit of our mountain culture and heritage with everyone.”

Venues include Continuum, Flat Rock Cinema, Honeysuckle Holler, Oklawaha, Sierra Nevada, Southern Appalachian and Trailside brewing companies and Treska’s on Highland Lake. For a full schedule and tickets, visit WinterRamble.com.

Blue Ridge Symphonic Brass performs Feb. 22

Blue Ridge Symphonic Brass will present the third concert of the current season at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, at Grace Lutheran Church,

1245 6th Avenue West. The program of works for brass, conducted by Cole Hairston, is free and open to the public, with donations appreciated and accepted.

Maestro Hairston has designed a program that will offer an appealing variety of music, including an exciting brass version of A Mighty Fortress: A Church Festival Overture for Brass Choir, the Welsh chorale Brin Calfaria, a powerful arrangement of the Prelude 14 by Dmitri Shostakovich and Tchesnokoff’s majestic Salvation Is Created. A special offering is the musical portrayal of A Londoner in New York in three movements titled Echoes of Harlem, The Chrysler Building and Grand Central. Rounding out the program is Purcell’s Voluntary on Old 100th and an antiphonal double choir selection by Giovanni Gabrieli, always an audience favorite.

Blue Ridge Symphonic Brass, featuring instruments found in a symphony orchestra’s brass section, is made up of musicians from the Brevard, Hendersonville, Asheville and Greenville, S.C., areas. Many perform or have performed with professional orchestras and bands or teach at universities and schools in the region. Hairston, who joined the brass ensemble as conductor earlier this season, is currently director of bands at Brevard College.

Trails of St. John getting forest restoration

Woodlands among the Trails of St. John is about to enter a new phase of restoration. The eradication of English Ivy and other non-native species begins Feb. 25 and continues through March 5. During that period the trails will be closed to the public.

The forest restoration project is a long-term plan to allow an abundance of native flora and fauna to thrive in the 12 acres of woods on the campus of St. John in the Wilderness. Once non-native species are eradicated, the restoration of native flora will also allow for an increase in a variety of birds and other wildlife along the trails.

This effort is funded through the generosity of the late Charles Rivers Stone, former parishioner and philanthropist. The project will use professional contractors as well as numerous volunteers associated with the church parish and its group of dedicated hikers, Holy Hikes WNC.

While the trails will only be closed for the few days, hikers should expect to see an English Ivy die-off that may look like the woods are unhealthy. This die-off is a sign that the woods are being restored to health. The church’s first efforts to re-introduce native plant species will occur in the fall.

One of the oldest churches in the mountains, St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock, opened The Trails of St. John last September. The trail system is located behind the Parish Hall of the church campus at 1905 Greenville Highway. The expansive wooded setting in the heart of Flat Rock recently revealed long-hidden historical and archeological secrets. The new trails meander along the west side of Greenville Highway intersecting the nearly disappeared “Old Jerusalem Path” which connected the parsonage with the church in the 1800s.

Long before the railroad opened up Western North Carolina, Charlestonians endured a week-long carriage ride on rough dirt roads to escape the heat and disease of low country summers. They made Flat Rock their “Little Charleston of the Mountains” each May through September. In 1827, Charles and Susan Baring built their summer home and a chapel which became St. John in the Wilderness, the first Episcopal church in WNC, now on the National Register of Historic Sites. The church witnessed the tribulations of slavery and the Civil War as well as the joys and sorrows of the last two centuries while growing and serving Flat Rock and the larger community.

The Trails of St. John is open to the public from dawn to dusk each day with information posted at kiosks on the property. For more information, visit the website: www.stjohnflatrock.org/trails.