Advance tickets now closed. Walk-up tickets will be available at the door.
Join this intimate evening of live music, featuring three excellent performers, each with a distinct take on the versatility and expressive potential of the classical guitar. Featuring Demeler, Brian Dooley, and David Stevenson.
Meet the artists…
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Demeler is a café and salon music duo made up of husband and wife, Andy Jurik (guitar) and Rachel Hansbury (voice). Their music is inspired by their favorite spaces – coffeehouses, wine bars, cozy restaurants, and other places people congregate over art, great food or drink, and conversation. The duo blends their love of eclectic music (including many sounds from folk traditions and jazz) with their classical training for a refreshing blend of composed music, arrangements, and original material.
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Brian Dooley is a guitarist and bagpiper residing in Asheville, NC. On the guitar he performs a wide variety of classical, finger-style, and Celtic music. His concerts typically blend a wide gamut of repertoire dating back from the Renaissance to the modern day, often including his own arrangements of popular and original material. Dooley received his Doctor of Musical Arts in guitar from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY and studied fingerstyle guitar privately with Kinloch Nelson.
As a teacher, he has lectured on fretboard harmony, guitar pedagogy, guitar history, music theory, and has taught secondary lessons in classical and jazz guitar. Brian is a recent graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned his DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts). As a guitarist, he has performed in a wide variety of ensembles on both classical and electric guitar, including solo recitals, film scores, opera, and chamber music. In addition to teaching Brian frequently performs in hospital spaces through EPAM (Eastman Performing Arts Musician) as part of the Friends of Strong program where he provides music for bedside performance and various spaces in the hospital.
Brian is a recording artist on both KOTEKAN and Azica Records. His solo guitar performance of Matthew Welch’s composition “Gorgamor the Giant Gecko” can be found on all streaming services. In Fall 2025, his recording as a soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra will be released performing Derrick Skye’s “To Seek is Jubilance.”
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After 3 and 1/2 decades of teaching guitar, both privately and at the collegiate level, David Stevenson has retired! Unstructured days often begin with walks in the woods and hills behind his house nestled on the banks of the Ivy River in Madison County. Days also include building guitar supports for which he has received two U.S. Patentswww.aframeguitarsupport.com
Playing the guitar now is purely for pleasure. As a composer, David has released 2 full length CD’s. In his words: “My writing tends to be rather simple harmonically - major and minor chords, some 7ths too, basic arpeggios and scales. Though I’m definitely trying to say something unique, the musical language is rather straight forward. To use a visual arts analogy: I’m using primary colors and recognizable lines and shapes, but definitely willing to color outside those lines! . . . . a new recording is in the works featuring much of the music you’ll hear [during the show]."
“His arpeggios gurgle like a thawing spring, or volcano in rivulets of double or triple time. May Arise is a tour de force of strong bass, speedy arpeggios and forceful, slashing harmonics.” - Daily Courier, Forest City, NC
“His intelligent, pictorial music portrays Thoreau-esque inner landscapes in shadowy muted tones. Stevenson’s playing is open, but forceful in a quiet way. It’s not intentionally showy, but just delivers what each composition requires. His special talent is for creating moods that take you places you probably haven’t been before.” - Acoustic Guitar Magazine
“Stevenson plays a nylon string guitar with a strong right hand and displays an unusually original compositional bent. He creates his own to good effect." - Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine
This event is presented by the Asheville Classical Guitar Society.