Your host Dr Bill Bares is a Pianist, composer, scholar, and educator. He received his Ph.D in ethnomusicology from Harvard University in 2009. He taught at Harvard, Brown, Berklee College of Music, and the New England Conservatory before taking a job as professor of music and co-director of jazz studies at UNC Asheville.

The Asheville Art Trio Featuring C-Pez

When the originators of the Asheville Original Music series—bassist Mike Holstein and drummer Justin Watt—teamed up with pianist Dr. William Bares (Harvard ethnomusicology Ph.D and professor of music at UNC Asheville) a decade ago to create a working jazz piano trio, the result was a new musical concept that has blurred the lines between art and entertainment, structure and spontaneity. The group has evolved a sound that combines elements of global music, Americana and jazz in ways that are recognizably artistic and quintessentially Ashevillian.

For this special evening, they are joined by accordionist Cory Pesaturo (“C-Pez”, a nationally-known talent feted by the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Quincy Jones and Bill Clinton. The Boston Globe described him as “not just a monster [of a player], but a monster’s monster,” a musician destined to make the instrument “hip” again. Pesaturo performs in a wide range of musical styles. He plays Italian music festivals across the United States, mainstream music with DJ’s, folk genres from French to Bulgarian and Jewish music, classical music performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and jazz, which he is most known for. Pesaturo has been featured on NBC’s That’s My Jam[ with Jimmy Fallon, and on “Weird Al” Yankovic’s biographical movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Additionally, he has given four TEDx Talks, and a host of other talks at known conferences, including two Talks at Google.