Sound & Consciousness: Mary Lattimore, Adam McDaniel, Experimental Meditation Club, and Binaural Beats with Katya Lovejoy

APLR & Make Noise Present: Sound & Consciousness - A Day Exploring What Happens When We Listen to Sound

Saturday, November 21, 2026

Doors: 2PM || Workshops: 3PM || Evening Performances: 7:30PM

AyurPrana Listening Room - 312 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC 28806

Sound & Consciousness brings together artists and audio experts who use sound in very different ways to investigate a deceptively simple question: what happens to us when we listen? Through performance, conversation, experimentation, and embodied practice, the symposium explores how sound shapes our experience and our relationship to consciousness.

Afternoon / Evening Offerings at AyurPrana Listening Room {312 Haywood Rd.}

Afternoon Workshops: Doors: 2PM | Workshops start: 3PM

Evening Conversation & Performances: Doors 7PM | Performances: 7:30PM

At 3PM, we welcome Katya Lovejoy for Sound Trip: Binaural Beats Yoga Nidra Workshop. Then at 4:30PM, we shift to Experimental Meditation Club, presented by Kelly Kelbel and Tony Rolando of Make Noise Music - Think breaths to let go of tension, sonic ambiance, a bit of grief work, heavy drones, and psychedelic introspection.

Evening offerings kick off at 7:30PM, starting with Adam McDaniel from Drop of Sun Studio and a conversation on Consciousness, Creativity and Connection, plus a live performance with special gues Joe Westerlund joining him. Our evening ends with a performance from the luminous harpist, Mary Lattimore, whose shimmering transportive compositions invite us into a world of reflection and possibility.

Morning Offerings:

Saturday, November 21, 2026 from 10AM – 2PM | Free with Registration

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and AyurPrana Listening Room present a rare complete performance of Morton Feldman’s monumental For Philip Guston (1984), performed by flutist Roberta Michel, pianist Matt Mitchell, and percussionist Dennis Sullivan II. This event is presented in partnership with AyurPrana Listening Room as part of Sound & Consciousness: A Day Exploring What Happens When We Listen to Sound.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Mary Lattimore

Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore, speaks not just for its beloved namesake — a hotel in Croatia facing renovation — but for a universal loss that is shared.

Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore’s decade-long catalog. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements.

“When I think of these songs, I think about fading flowers in vases, melted candles, getting older, being on tour and having things change while you’re away, not realizing how ephemeral experiences are until they don’t happen anymore, fear for a planet we’re losing because of greed, an ode to art and music that’s really shaped your life that can transport you back in time, longing to maintain sensitivity and to not sink into hollow despondency.”

Memories, scenes, and split-second impressions have long filled Lattimore’s musical universe. As one of today’s preeminent instrumental storytellers, she has “the uncanny ability to pluck a string in a way that will instantly make someone remember the taste of their fifth birthday cake,” writes Pitchfork’s Jemima Skala.

Lattimore’s impulse to record life as it happens matches her drive to travel and perform, as profiled by Grayson Haver Currin for \*The New York Times\*: “Lattimore recognized that being in motion shook loose strands of inspiration, moods she wanted to express with melody. She needed, then, to remain on the go.”

That sense of fluidity has also made her a prolific collaborator outside of solo work. 2020’s \*Silver Ladders\*, recorded with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead, opened the door for Lattimore to widen the vision of her primary project as well, and its proper follow-up is the natural next scale.

“All of these people I asked to contribute have deeply affected and inspired my life.”

For the title and inspiration, Lattimore’s mind returns to the island of Hvar in Croatia, where she first saw those silver ladders at the water’s edge.

“There’s a big old hotel there called the Hotel Arkada, and you could tell it had been hosting holiday-goers for decades in a great way. I walked around the lobby and the empty ballrooms and it looked like a well-worn, well-loved place. My friend Stacey who lives there told me to ‘say goodbye to Hotel Arkada, it might not be here when you get back’ and I heard soon after that it was actually going to be renovated in a very crisp, modern way.”

Lattimore became fixated on the ingredients that make a place special — for Hotel Arkada, the patinaed chandeliers, the patterned bedspreads, the echoes of its intangible charm — and how when those leave this world, as they inevitably always will, it feels important to memorialize them, “to bottle it for a brief second.”

Adam McDaniel

Adam McDaniel is a music producer and multi-instrumentalist living in Asheville, North Carolina. Adam's role as a producer in pop, rock, and jazz is characterized by a propensity for experimentation and the inclusion of musique concrète techniques. As founder and co-owner of Drop of Sun Studios, Adam McDaniel is dedicated to the arts community of Asheville and beyond, fostering a space and time for artists to seek and discover spiritual and emotional truth in music.

Kelly Kelbel

Kelly Kelbel meditates every morning in bed, mostly using the Happier App. She started meditating shortly after she started chemotherapy out of desperation to find relief from her fear. It worked!

\*Chemo Sessions\* is a project she created to offer support to folks going through treatment through a letter, music, tips from pals, and guided meditations.

She is also a writer and co-owns a synthesizer company, Make Noise, in West Asheville. Previously, she served as a legal advocate for survivors of sexual violence in Chicago and youth being tried as adults in New York City. She was a founding teacher of the School for Democracy and Leadership in Brooklyn, and directed the Rise Project at Warren Wilson College.

Tony Rolando

Tony Rolando meditates irregularly, but notices a benefit every time he does a sit. He often uses the quiet.

He is a self-taught electronic musical instrument designer who got started by obsessively reading Amateur Radio Relay League books at the public library, building electronics for artists, such as the light-controlled remixer for Simon Lee’s “Bus Obscura,” which debuted at the Whitney Biennial, working for Moog Music, and always playing music.

Tony has recently released music with Important Records and the Asheville-based Ceremony of Seasons. He is the founder, lead designer, and co-owner of Make Noise.

Experimental Meditation Club with Kelly Kelbel and Tony Rolando

We’ll provide partially guided meditations with sonic accompaniment. Think breaths to let go of tension, sonic ambiance, a bit of grief work, heavy drones, and psychedelic introspection (without any drugs).

While everyone is welcome, this will be tailored to people who:

\* Are new to meditation and may be skeptical or rekindling a practice

\* Like the company of sonic vibrations

\* Are open to trying this experiment and okay with it being messy

\* Want to test their own rigidity and capacity for expansion

\* Like the idea of democratizing meditation

What to Expect:

include some context, a guided meditation around the theme, a short conversation (no one is required to talk, so introverts don’t run away, please), and a longer meditation using only sound.

Katya Lovejoy

Katya Lovejoy is a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and meditation teacher passionate about guiding others through transcendental experiences. Combining her experience in neuroscience, transpersonal psychology, and ancient wisdom teachings, Katya creates transformational journeys through expanded states of consciousness to support release, resolution, and realignment.

Her workshop Sound Trip: Binaural Yoga Nidra was born from a curiosity of how ancient wisdom and modern science can come together to support healing, growth, and expansion. This unique modality combines the guided practice of yoga nidra, a meditation journey designed to open the door to expanded states of consciousness, alongside binaural beats, a sound healing modality derived from neuroscience and music theory. Delivered through wireless LED headphones, binaural beats synchronize the brain hemispheres through specific frequencies of tones in each ear, while yoga nidra guides listeners through multiple levels of consciousness and energy. Get ready to go where you’ve never been before.

About the Artists perfrming Morton Feldman's *For Philip Guston:*

Roberta Michel, flute

Brooklyn-based flutist Roberta Michel is dedicated to the music of our time and has commissioned and premiered hundreds of new works. She is Co-Director of Wavefield Ensemble and a member of Da Capo Chamber Players, PinkNoise, and Duo RoMi. She has performed with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Wet Ink Ensemble, SEM Ensemble, Wordless Music Orchestra, and others, appearing at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Roulette, the Kennedy Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Michel is Assistant Teaching Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University.

Matt Mitchell, piano

Matt Mitchell is a pianist, composer, and electronic musician whose work moves between composed and improvised music, acoustic and electronic sound, and multiple strains of contemporary experimental practice. He leads Phalanx Ambassadors and co-leads Snark Horse with Kate Gentile and has worked extensively with artists including Tim Berne, Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman, Miles Okazaki, Ches Smith, Anna Webber, and many others. Mitchell is a recipient of a Doris Duke Impact Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Dennis Sullivan II, percussion

Dennis Sullivan II is a New York-based percussionist, improviser, composer, and sound artist working across contemporary music, electronics, improvisation, and interdisciplinary performance. He is a founding member of Popebama and Radical 2 and has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Either/Or, Argento, and others. His work has been presented throughout the United States and Europe, and he is a recipient of the Darmstadt Stipendium Prize.