APLR Presents: Natalie Spears & David Brown (of Rising Appalachia)

Friday, May 22nd, 2026

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

Doors 6PM || Event 7PM

Natalie Spears & David Brown (of Rising Appalachia)

Natalie Spears & David Brown are a duo rooted in a love of old songs and a sense of place. With hand-made instruments, close harmonies, and a deep reverence for traditional tunes, they approach roots music with thoughtfulness and palpable joy. Their sound is both grounded and exploratory, allowing time-worn songs to open into new shapes.

Together, they blend Natalie’s evocative voice and musicianship with David’s rhythmic sensibility and wide-ranging inspiration. Their music inhabits a space shaped by care, listening, and a shared sense of restraint.

David Brown, coming from a long line of Appalachian musicians, is fluent across a range of stringed instruments. For more than a decade, he has been a quiet architect of Rising Appalachia’s sound, shaping arrangements and recordings from within the group’s genre-defying approach to folk music. His 2025 release, The Long Branch Sessions, recorded in a cabin with Duncan Wickel, offers an unvarnished take on traditional music, while his work under the name Castanea explores rhythm and texture through electronic forms.

Natalie Spears brings a lyrical, expressive voice to the duo’s sound, interpreting traditional and contemporary folk material with intimacy and depth. Alongside her subtle command of the clawhammer banjo, she is a seasoned songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose solo album The Hymn of Wild Things explores themes of wonder, loss, and transformation. Drawing on her background in ecology and storytelling, her music invites listeners into a deeper connection with the natural world and the human heart.

Whether reviving an old ballad or exploring a newer folk composition, Natalie Spears & David Brown offer a musical experience that feels both timeless and alive, guided by tone, care, and the quiet joy of making music by hand.