MACC Talk at Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center

Steve Bishir is a five-time Grammy Award-winning sound engineer. Over the course of his long career, Steve has worked with such artists as Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks and Steve Wariner, among many others. Moreover, he has mixed more than 100 singles that have gone to No. 1 on the charts. Steve also runs the Media Production Program at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin. The prog...

Steve Wariner is one of country music’s best-known entertainers. Over the course of his long career, he’s scored 14 number-one hits and earned four Grammy awards and 11 Grammy nominations. But Steve is also a gifted visual artist who creates works in oil, acrylic, watercolor and mixed media. In this episode of MACC Talk, Steve joins host John Pitcher to discuss his exhibit The Flip Side , which ru...

You can think of Six One Tribe as the Wu-Tang Clan of Nashville. This amazing hip-hop collective boasts a large roster of rappers, producers and musicians who have come together to create a diverse and contemporary music ecosystem. They also spearhead 615 Day, the multi-day festival starting June 15th that celebrates art, music, culture and fashion in Nashville. In this episode of the podcast MACC...

This weekend, about 300 Tennessee high school students will head to Middle Tennessee State University to attend the 2026 Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts. In this episode of MACC Talk, the school's Director Kate Goodwin and Music Chair Jerome Reed join host John Pitcher to discuss this crown jewel of Tennessee arts programming. The episode is sponsored by Nōssi College of Art & Des...

How do you capture the soul of a community? If you’re the artist Wendy Murray, you grab pen and paper and hit the streets. For the past 15 months, Murray has been engaged in the ambitious project of drawing every building along a 6.5-mile stretch of Gallatin Pike in Nashville, Tenn. The fruit of her labor is now on display in an exhibition titled The Long Way Home: Painting the Pike by Wendy Murra...

The Nashville Jazz Workshop has named a seasoned saxophonist, educator and arts leader as its new executive and artistic director. Max Abrams took over the lead at NJW in February, and he is wasting no time in introducing new jazz programming. That includes an ambitious year-long residency at NJW featuring the distinguished Nashville jazz vocalist Monica Ramey. In this episode of MACC Talk, Max an...

Jason Spelbring is the new artistic director at Nashville Shakespeare Festival. A veteran actor, director and educator, Spelbring spent 11 years teaching acting at Utah State University before moving to Nashville. Now, he’s ready to turn theory into practice as he leads Music City’s Shakespeare Fest into the future. In this episode of MACC Talk, Spelbring joins host John Pitcher to discuss his pla...

Pianist Lori Mechem is a co-founder and former director of the Nashville Jazz Workshop. Every year, Lori and her quartet herald the holiday season with their annual Charlie Brown Christmas concert. In this episode of MACC Talk, Lori joins host John Pitcher to discuss her life in music and love for jazz. She’s especially passionate about the timeless soundtrack that the jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi...

Andrew Dunn is a Nashville-based cellist who has made a name for himself recording video game music. A frequent collaborator with the Nashville Music Scoring Orchestra, Andrew has recorded music for such popular games as Call of Duty, Anthem and Fortnite, among many others. He’s also a popular YouTuber, recording video game covers under the pseudonym Israfelcello. In this episode of MACC Talk, And...

Red Arrow Gallery occupies a relatively small space in East Nashville. Yet it exerts a disproportionately large influence on Music City’s visual arts scene. That’s because Red Arrow’s Gallerist Katie Shaw and Director Ashley Layendecker run their establishment like an elite music agency. They represent a small roster of artists and lavish them with attention. Not surprisingly, these artists are fl...

In 1890, a diminutive French aristocrat named Henri Toulouse-Lautrec received a commission to create posters advertising Le Moulin Rouge. His drawings of cabaret singers and can-can dancers became a sensation. In blurring the line between fine art and advertising, Toulouse-Lautrec set in motion an aesthetic that would dominate the pop-art movement of the mid-20th-century. In this episode of MACC T...

Aaron Dethrage is co-founder of Nashville’s hip-hop collective Six One Trïbe. Like New York’s Wu-Tang Clan, Nashville’s collective boasts a large roster of rappers, producers, editors and designers. Together, these amazing artists have come together to create a diverse and contemporary musical ecosystem. In this episode of MACC Talk, Dethrage joins host John Pitcher to discuss Nashville’s vibrant...

Stephanie Silverman has been the executive director of the Belcourt Theatre for nearly 20 years. Under her leadership, the Belcourt has been recognized as a national model for sustainable art house theaters by its peers and industry leaders. In this episode of MACC Talk, Stephanie joins host John Pitcher to discuss the state independent film in Music City. She also shares her views on the 98th Aca...

The late-great Nashville artist Barbara Bullock is the focus of a new exhibit titled Sistah Griot: The Iconoclastic Art of Barbara Bulllock. The exhibit, expertly curated by Nashville photographer Carlton Wilkinson, runs through April 26, 2026 at Nashville’s Frist Art Gallery. Bullock painted vivid characters living in a topsy-turvy world. Her work offers satirical commentary on societal norms, an...

Jim Sherraden spent 34 years working at Hatch Show Print, Nashville’s iconic letterpress poster and print shop. Now, he creates prints that are truly works of fine art. In this episode of MACC Talk, Jim joins host John Pitcher to discuss his art, which is now the focus of an exhibition at the MACC titled From Brayer to Brush . The exhibit runs through April 5, 2026.

The Nashville Symphony Orchestra has named Leonard Slatkin its new music director. The celebrated maestro has a long history with the NSO. He was the NSO’s music advisor in the early 2000s and was on the podium when the orchestra opened its acoustically marvelous Schermerhorn Symphony Center in 2006. The orchestra also won the first three of its many Grammy Awards under Slatkin’s direction. In thi...

Women have played an oversized role in shaping Nashville’s contemporary art scene. That’s the theme of a new exhibition at the Frist Art Museum titled In Her Place: Nashville Artists in the 21st Century. The exhibit features nearly 100 works by 28 prominent Nashville women artists. In this episode of MACC Talk, Frist Senior Curator Katie Delmez joins host John Pitcher to discuss the women and art...

Richard Modica is the owner of Modfellows Art Gallery. Located in the Grassmere neighborhood of Nashville, the 2,000-square-foot gallery is a contemporary art space showcasing modern art from Nashville artists as well as nationally recognized talent. In this episode of the podcast MACC Talk, Modica joins host John Pitcher to talk about the rewards and challenges of running a private art gallery in...

What does an emerging visual artist need to do to get noticed? Ruth Chase has some ideas. A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Ruth has over 30 years of experience as a professional studio artist. As Monthaven’s regional arts director, Ruth has introduced a new series called Meet Me at the MACC. The series helps new and established artists grow their careers. In this episode of MACC Talk...

Nadine Shillingford is a Nashville-based visual artist who creates intimate portraits using charcoal on paper. Her art captures people in everyday situations and evokes their spirit by highlighting their facial expressions. It’s a whimsical approach that gives vitality to her work. Twenty of Nadine’s fabulous works are on display at Monthaven as part of an exhibit titled La Femme Fatale. The exhib...

Banning Bouldin is without question one of Nashville’s most important artists. As founding artistic director of the dance collective New Dialect, Banning has helped transform Nashville into a dance hub. Her strikingly original choreography has been performed at such venues as the Tennessee Performing Arts Center and Oz Arts Nashville. She’s received numerous awards and honors for her work, includi...

It’s been another great year for music in Nashville. From singer Hayley Williams’ album Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party to Shaboozey’s single “Good News,” Music City has continued to crank out the hits. To celebrate these accomplishments, MACC Talk has launched its first annual Year in Music podcast. In this special episode, Nashville Scene Music Editor Stephen Trageser and Nashville music journ...

David Wright is the premier artist of the American Frontier. His paintings depict historical subjects with deeply researched accuracy and detail. David’s paintings are now the subject of a beautiful new book titled David Wright: Historian with a Brush. The book showcases some of David’s finest paintings of the American Frontier and the U.S. Civil War, along with some of his remarkably expressive r...

James Coleman is one of the world’s foremost artists and animators. During a storied career with the Walt Disney Company, Coleman worked on the animation of nearly a dozen feature-length films, including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. He left Disney after 22 years to become a fine artist, and his impressionistic paintings can now be found in collections around the world. In this epis...

Cristina Spinei is a Nashville-based composer and performer who has written music for numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles. She is best known for her work with ballet, having written music for Nashville Ballet, New York Choreographic Institute, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Parsons Dance Company, and many more. In this episode of MACC Talk, Cristina joins host John Pitcher to talk about her new a...