AFC Events

Library, Smithsonian Launch Civil Rights History Project Website

The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) have launched The Civil Rights History Project at www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/. The portal presents the results of a nationwide inventory of oral-history interviews with participants in the civil rights movement. The full press release is at http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2011/11-150.html

AFC Symposium on Brazilian Literatura de Cordel Sept. 26-27

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is sponsoring a symposium entitled “Literatura de Cordel: Continuity and Change in Brazilian Popular Literature,” in collaboration with the Library’s Hispanic Division, the Library’s overseas office in Rio de Janeiro, and the Embassy of Brazil in Washington, DC. Additional support and assistance is provided by the Library's Poetry and Literature Office.

The symposium will take place on Monday, September 26 and Tuesday, September 27, 2011. Attendance is free of charge, but registration is required. For a complete schedule and to register online, visit: [http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/litcordel/] Please reserve your place today!

Literatura de cordel, literally “string literature,” refers to popular booklets or chapbooks originally hung along cords strung across marketplace stalls to attract buyers. A tradition brought from Portugal to northeastern Brazil in the sixteenth century, literatura de cordel features traditional poetry on many topics, often illustrated by eye-catching woodblock images. Today, cordel poems are no longer found solely in northeastern Brazil, but also in the larger cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In addition to being printed in traditional chapbook fashion, they are found widely on the Internet.

“Literatura de Cordel: Continuity and Change in Brazilian Popular Literature,” will draw attention to the American Folklife Center’s collections of Brazilian literatura de cordel, which are among the most extensive in the world. The symposium will also examine the artistry, narrative, and iconography of cordel. Noted scholars of cordel will be featured, as will the artistry of cordel poets, singers, and woodcut artists.

American Folklife Center Seeking New Director

Dr. Peggy A. Bulger, the director of the American Folklife Center (AFC), is retiring from federal service on December 31, 2011. The Library of Congress is seeking a new AFC director. The application period, which has just opened, will close on September 15, 2011. This is a senior level federal position of national prominence, and the Library is seeking a leader in folklife, ethnomusicology, and related cultural fields, as well as an experienced and successful administrator.

The American Folklife Center was created by Congress in 1976 and placed at the Library of Congress to “preserve and present American folklife” through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, public programs, and training. The Center includes the American Folklife Center Archive, which was established in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world.

As director of the AFC and principal officer for folklife in the Library, the person filling this position has full managerial and professional responsibility for the development and growth of research programs, collection development, public and scholarly service, preservation and custodial management, interpretive and other special programs of education and presentation (including publications, exhibits, and events) of the AFC. The director is also responsible for managing the AFC gift and trust funds and for raising private funds to support AFC objectives. The director is responsible for the management of the Folklife Reading Room to carry out AFC's custodial responsibility for the AFC Archive collections, including significant oral history and born-digital collections (e.g. the Veterans History Project Collection, the StoryCorps Collection and the Civil Rights History Project Collection).

Interested candidates can view information about this vacancy on the Library of Congress website (http://www.loc.gov/hr/employment/index.php?action=cMain.showJobs), or on the USAjobs website (http://jobview.usajobs.gov/getjob.aspx?OPMControl=2357704.)

Library of Congress Kluge Center Concert-- Sephardic Music

The American Folklife Center Announces that the Library's first Lomax-Kluge Fellow will perform in concert next week:

Sephardic Music Concert with Judith Cohen

Tuesday, August 16
12 noon - 1 p.m.
Pickford Theater, Third Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Judith Cohen, Alan Lomax Fellow in American Folklife, performs rarely heard Sephardic wedding songs, narrative ballads and diaspora music with her daughter, Tamar Ilana.
For information: http://www.loc.gov/loc/events/ or (202) 707-3302

Lomax-Kluge Fellow Lecture at Library

Please note today's lecture by Judith Cohen, the first recipient of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies
“Sephardic - Ladino - Judeo-Spanish Song: Myths and (Relative) Realities”
presented by Judith R. Cohen, Ethnomusicologist, York University in Toronto, Canada and Library of Congress Kluge Center Fellow
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
African & Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, Thomas Jefferson Building, LJ 220
Free and open to the public
Sponsored by the Hebraic Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress
For information please visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/Upcomingevents/UpcomingEvents.html or contact Peggy Pearlstein at (202) 707-3779 or ppea@loc.gov

AFC Lecture: Decoration Day in the Mountains

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2011 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Decoration Day in the Mountains
a book talk presented by Alan Jabbour and Karen Singer Jabbour

July 7, 2011, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Decoration Day is a late spring or summer tradition that involves cleaning community cemeteries, decorating them with flowers, holding religious services in cemeteries, and having dinner on the ground. These commemorations seem to predate the post-Civil-War celebrations that ultimately gave us our national Memorial Day. Little has been written about this tradition, but it is still practiced widely throughout the Upland South, from North Carolina to the Ozarks and beyond. Written by folklorist Alan Jabbour and illustrated with more than a hundred photographs taken by his wife, Karen Singer Jabbour, Decoration Day in the Mountains is an in-depth exploration of this little-known cultural tradition.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#july7 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC webcasts showcase over 140 past programs

You can now participate in over 140 American Folklife Center programs through streaming webcasts on the Library of Congress website. Available webcasts include symposia, concerts, lectures, interviews and other programs produced by the AFC since 2001. These webcasts are a great way to experience programs you missed, and to see the range of programs AFC has produced in the past ten years.

Some recently added webcasts include:

The Work & Transformation Symposium from December 2010

The Borderlines/Borderlands Symposium from June 2010

Homegrown Concerts and Botkin Lectures from the 2010 Series

For a complete list of AFC programs now available as webcasts, please visit:

http://search.loc.gov:8765/webcasts/query.html?sc=0&ws=0&la=en&qm=0&st=1&nh=10&lk=1&rf=0&oq=&si=0&rq=0&qc=&qt=+folklife&col=webcasts

AFC Concert: Traditional Choctaw storytelling and music from Oklahoma

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents a concert in the 2011 Homegrown Concert Series

Tim Tingle and D.J. Battiest-Tomasi — Traditional Choctaw storytelling and music from Oklahoma

Wednesday, June 29 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building, First Floor

Both D. J. Battiest-Tomasi and Tim Tingle are enrolled as members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and regularly participate in tribal events. Tim is a traditional singer, flute player, and drummer, and a nationally known performance storyteller, as well as a teacher, writer, and lecturer. He delivers lively historical and traditional stories, accompanying himself on the Native American flute, and sings Choctaw songs to the rhythms of a whaleskin drum. D. J. is also a flute player and storyteller, and works as a family counselor. Both have performed extensively across Oklahoma and are considered to be ambassadors of the Choctaw people.

Concert is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit: http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/1011-folklife.html#june29 or call 202-707-5510.

Celebrating Native American Language Revitalization in Film

AFC is pleased to announce a free public event:

Celebrating Native American Language Revitalization in Film
10:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 21
Mumford Room, James Madison Building,
Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC.

The American Folklife Center and other divisions at the Library of Congress will join the organization "Cultural Survival" in celebrating innovative tribal language programs and language activists who are revitalizing America’s ancient linguistic heritage. Join us to celebrate their efforts, learn about the challenges they face, and share in their successes. Library of Congress curatorial staff will point to resources within the institution's vast collections, with a focus on field recordings, manuscripts, photos, and other archival materials that tribal language programs can incorporate into local curricula. This will be followed by screenings of several films focusing on Native American language revitalization.

Featured film:
We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân, a prize-winning film that tells the story of cultural revival by the Wampanoag of Southeastern Massachusetts.

AFC Lecture: Reclaiming Lost Languages

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2011 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Reclaiming Lost Languages: The Breath of Life Archival Institutes for Indigenous Languages
presented by Leanne Hinton, University of California, Berkeley

June 16 , 2011, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Coolidge Auditorium, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Leanne Hinton is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in American Indian languages, sociolinguistics, language loss and language revival. She is an advocate for the perpetuation and revival of Native American languages. In 2006, she won the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award for her contributions to the support of linguistic diversity. In her current research, she is observing families that make endangered languages the languages of their homes.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#june16 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Announces the Summer Schedule of Botkin Lectures

Summer Lectures in the Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lecture Series:

Reclaiming Lost languages: The Breath of Life Archival Institutes for Indigenous Languages, Thursday, June 16, presented by Leanne Hinton, University of California/Berkeley

Decoration Day in the Mountains, Thursday, July 7, presented by Alan Jabbour & Karen Singer Jabbour

Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet, Wednesday, August 10, presented by Russell Frank, Pennsylvania State University

New Lost City Ramblers and Folk Music Authenticity, Thursday, September 8, presented by Ray Allen, Brooklyn College/CUNY

All lectures begin are held at the Library of Congress from 12 noon to 1 pm. For locations and more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html or call 202-707-5510. Lectures are free and open to the public.

AFC Announces Homegrown Concert Season

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the 2011 Homegrown Season:

May 25: Ben Payton and the Thundering Harps -- Blues Quartet from Mississippi

June 22: Tony Ellis and the Musicians of Braeburn-- Traditional Banjo and Stringband music from Ohio

June 29: Tim Tingle and D.J. Battiest-Tomasi -- Traditional Choctaw storytelling and music from Oklahoma

July 20: Kiu Haghighi with Tooraj Moshref-Zadeh -- Persian santour and tombak music from Illinois

July 27: Ann Yao Trio -- Traditional Chinese zheng music from Florida

August 17: Daniel Boucher and Friends -- Traditional French-Canadian fiddle music from Connecticut

August 24: Sophia Bilides Trio -- Traditional Greek Smyrneika music from Massachusetts

September 14: Agustin Lira Trio and Quetzal -- Chicano Music from California

All concerts take place at 12 noon in the Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building, 1st Floor. For more information on the series or for descriptions of individual concerts, please visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/1011-folklife.html

AFC Announces Homegrown Concert Season

AFC Announces 2011 Fellowships

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (AFC) has awarded its 2011 fellowships.

The Archie Green Fellowship goes to Pat Jasper, William Westerman, James Leary, Bucky Halker, Tanya D. Finchum and Juliana M. Nykolaiszyn.

The Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award goes to David Greely and Emily Kader.

The Blanton Owen Fund Award goes to Bradley Hanson.

Please visit the link for biographies of the recipients and a brief description of their projects:

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2011/11-103.html

AFC Lecture: The Two Worlds of the Pennsylvania Dutch

The Two Worlds of the Pennsylvania Dutch
presented by Don Yoder, professor emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
May 5, 2011, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

The Pennsylvania Dutch culture, which is now over three centuries old and still evolving, is an American hybrid creation put together from Continental Europe, British Isles, and American building blocks in Southeastern Pennsylvania. While this culture is a unit linguistically, and in most other ways, it is divided down the middle by religion. The "two worlds" are those of the "Plain Dutch" – Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren – and the much large world of the Lutheran and Recorded churches of the German and Swiss Reformates. Dr. Yoder will illustrate the differences between these two cultural patterns with slides and ethnographic commentary.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#may5 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture: The Challenges of Designing the Roud Folk Song Index

Chorus and Verse: The Challenges of Designing the Roud Folk Song Index, presented by Steve Roud

April 14, 2011, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Steve Roud will discuss his work compiling The Folk Song Index, an online index to all the traditional folksongs of the English-speaking world. The Folk Song Index is a freely-available online database which lists English-language traditional songs collected in Britain, North America, and Australia, whether found in books, sound recordings, or unpublished collections. In this presentation, Roud will give special attention to several exciting digitization projects already underway, and others planned for the near future, which have moved the project to an unprecedented level of sophistication and public accessibility.

Steve Roud is a retired local studies librarian who is now a freelance writer and researcher specializing in folklore and folksong projects in Britain.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#april14 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture: The Capital Pool Checkers Club

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2011 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

"The Capital Pool Checkers Club: Tradition, Competition, and Community in Washington, DC"

presented by ethnographic photographer Peggy Fleming, with Maurice Jackson, professor of history, Georgetown University, and special checker club guests John Curtis, Oliver Griffin, and Tal Roberts

March 18, 2011, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#march18 or call 202-707-5510. Or find the event on our Facebook page, and "Like" us to read our regular posts exploring our collection materials: http://www.facebook.com/americanfolklifecenter -- you'll find information there about upcoming grant deadlines too.

Frank Buckles, Last Surviving U.S. WWI Veteran Passes Away

Frank Buckles, the last surviving U.S. WWI veteran, passed away at his West Virginia home on Sunday. In recent years he remarked that he considered it his duty and was proud to represent his fellow soldiers from what was called The Great War.

Viewing Frank’s Veterans History Project interviews is one way to remember him and his service to our nation. His collection includes two interviews, given when he was 100 and 103 years old, as well as original documents and photographs. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.01070/

The Mission of the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. Learn more at www.loc.gov/vets. Share your stories with VHP to be considered for future RSS. Email vohp@loc.gov and place “My VHP RSS Story” in the subject line.

Deadline Extended for Lomax Kluge Fellowship

The American Folklife Center Announces an Extension to the Deadline for the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress invites qualified scholars to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship for advanced research based on the Alan Lomax Collection.

The 2011 application deadline has been extended to April 4, 2011, with the fellowship commencing anytime after September 1, 2011.

For an application and information on the Lomax fellowships, visit www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/fellowships/lomax.html or contact the Kluge Center at (202) 707-3302 or scholarly@loc.gov. For more information about the Lomax Collection, visit www.loc.gov/folklife/lomax/.

AFC's Benjamin Botkin lecture canceled

Tomorrow’s Benjamin Botkin lecture has been canceled. Due to bad storm conditions in Vermont, Wolfgang Mieder will not be able to make it to the Library of Congress to present "Making a Way Out of No Way: Martin Luther King's Use of Proverbs for Civil Rights." The American Folklife Center will reschedule this presentation as soon as possible.

AFC Lecture: Martin Luther King's Use of Proverbs

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

"Making a Way Out of No Way: Martin Luther King's Use of Proverbs"

presented by Wolfgang Mieder, University of Vermont

January 13, 2011, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Prof. Wolfgang Mieder has special expertise in the areas of German and international folklore, the history of the German language, the Middle Ages, and especially the study of proverbs. For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#jan13 or call 202-707-5510.

2011 Archie Green Fellowship announced (pending funding)

The 2011 Archie Green Fellowship has been announced! Pending Funding, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress will award one or more fellowships for original research into the culture and traditions of American workers. The application deadline is March 11, 2011. For information about how to apply, please visit

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/grants.html#archie

AFC Concert: Gullah-Geechee Ring Shout from Georgia

The American Folklife Center presents the December concert in the Homegrown concert series:

THE MCINTOSH COUNTY SHOUTERS: Gullah-Geechee Ring Shout from Georgia
Thursday, December 2 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The McIntosh County Shouters is a ten-member Gullah-Geechee group that began performing professionally in 1980. They have educated and entertained audiences around the United States with the ring shout, a compelling fusion of counterclockwise dance-like movement, call-and-response singing, and percussion consisting of hand claps and a stick beating the rhythm on a wooden floor.

For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#december2 or call 202-707-5510.

Please join us for upcoming AFC symposium

WORK AND TRANSFORMATION: DOCUMENTING WORKING AMERICANS

Free Public Symposium
December 6-7, 2010
Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Room LJ-119

Co-Sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (AFC), and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Featuring AFC’s Archie Green Fellows.

AFC Concert: American Indian Flute Music from Arizona

CARLOS NAKAI—American Indian Flute Music from Arizona
Wednesday, November 17 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Of Navajo-Ute heritage, R. Carlos Nakai is the world’s best known performer of Native American flute music. For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#november17 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Announces Recipient of Alan Lomax Fellowship

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce that Judith Cohen, professor of ethnomusicology at York University in Toronto, Canada has been awarded The Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies from the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. Cohen will be in residence in Washington, DC between April and September 2011. She will be working with collections related to Spanish traditional music, gathered by Alan Lomax in Spain during the 1950s.

For more information on Judith Cohen, please visit:
http://www.yorku.ca/judithc/MainEng.htm

For more information on The Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies, please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/fellowships/lomax.html

For more information on the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, please visit:
www.loc.gov/folklife

AFC Co-Sponsoring Two Lectures on Oral History

The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce two lectures co-sponsored by the Oral History in the Digital Age Project and the American Folklife Center

November 3, 2010 7:30-9pm, Dining Room A, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Oral Narratives and Scholarship in the Digital Age, presented by Mark Kornbluh, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences Professor of History; and

Imagining the Futures of the Spoken Word, presented by Douglas W. Oard, Associate Dean for Research University of Maryland iSchool

The lectures are free and open to the public. For more information on the lectures, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#november3

Registration Now Open for AFC Symposium: Work and Transformation

AFC Symposium: DOCUMENTING WORKING AMERICANS

Free Public Symposium
December 6-7, 2010
Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Room LJ-119

The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce a two-day free public symposium, Work and Transformation: Documenting Working Americans. The complete schedule and online registration will be available soon.

Please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/index.html#symposia or call 202-707-5510 for more information.

Co-Sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (AFC), and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

AFC Co-sponsoring Greil Marcus lecture

For more information visit: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/index.html#other
or call 202-707-5510

AFC Lecture: Makers of the Sacred Harp

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Makers of the Sacred Harp

presented by David Warren Steel, University of Mississippi

October 21, 2010, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm

Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

David Warren Steel, associate professor of music and southern culture at the University of Mississippi, has been singing in the Sacred Harp since 1972. He will discuss his book, The Makers of the Sacred Harp, newly published by the University of Illinois Press.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#october21 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Bluegrass from Indiana

The American Folklife Center presents the October concert in the Homegrown concert series:

NOT TOO BAD BLUEGRASS BAND--Bluegrass from Indiana
Wednesday, October 13 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#october13 or call 202-707-5510.

National Book Festival: September 25

The Veterans History Project is among the attractions at this year's National Book Festival. At the Library of Congress Pavilion on the Mall this Saturday, you can learn how to interview the veteran in your life. Also, meet author Larry Minear, whose new book explores the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. See his website at http://larryminear.com/

AFC Lecture: Translating Africa in Global Contexts

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Translating Africa in Global Contexts

presented by Lee Haring, professor emeritus of English at Brooklyn College

September 22, 2010, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#september22 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Guatemalan Marimba Music from Maryland

The American Folklife Center presents the September concert in the Homegrown concert series:

MARIMBA LINDA XELAJU: Guatemalan Marimba Music from Maryland
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

At the core of Guatemala's musical traditions is the marimba, an instrument with West African roots that can be found throughout northern Central America and southern Mexico. The marimba is Guatemala's official national instrument, and government ordinances require broadcasting of marimba music on a daily basis. The contemporary marimba's construction is similar to that of the xylophone. Its key arrangement resembles that of a piano, with the "black keys" set above and behind the "white keys." Some of the larger marimbas may be played by as many as eight musicians, each using two or more rubber-tipped mallets. On early marimbas, each key has its own gourd resonator underneath. On more modern instruments, these gourd resonators have been replaced with tubes made of wood, metal or even PVC. The tubes on a Guatemalan marimba have a tiny hole at the bottom, over which a piece of intestinal membrane or skin is stretched. When a key is struck, the membrane makes a loud buzzing sound while the resonator amplifies the key's tone.

AFC Concert: Milwaukee-Slovenian Style Polka from Wisconsin

STEVE MEISNER AND FRIENDS—Milwaukee-Slovenian Style Polka from Wisconsin
Wednesday, August 25 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Steve Meisner is a multi-talented musician, composer and arranger, and a leading figure in American Polka music. He has brought his brand of traditional American polka into the 21st century with a fresh spark and swing, while retaining the music’s roots. He has played with the nation’s top accordionists, including Myron Floren, Frank Yankovic, and Joey Miskulin. He performs nationally and internationally, averaging two hundred performances a year; venues have included the Lawrence Welk Theater in Branson, Missouri, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Folklife Sourcebook Updated

AFC's popular resource, The Folklife Sourcebook, has been updated and expanded as a searchable database of ethnographic resources related to folklife, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and the humanities. Formerly a directory of North American folklife organizations organized geographically, the new database version includes organizations of international interest, from various ethnographic disciplines, and also includes internet resources related to ethnography and ethnomusicology.

AFC presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Place and the Politics of Belonging, presented by Debra Lattanzi Shutika, George Mason University.

Debra Lattanzi Shutika teaches courses in Myth and Literature and Ethnographic Writing in the English Department of George Mason University. She earned a PhD in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. She has done ethnographic research in the Mexican community in the town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and in the hometown of many of its residents, Textitlán, Guanajuato, Mexico. This research is the subject of her forthcoming book from University of California Press, Beyond the Borderlands: Mexican Migration, New Destinations, and the Sense of Place. In addition to teaching, she is currently directing a study of immigration and assimilation in Northern Virginia at George Mason University. She writes a blog focusing on ethnographic perspectives on US immigration issues, entitled The Gringa.

AFC presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Cultural Democracy in a Time of Diminished Resources

presented by Bau Graves, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago

July 22, 2010, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm

Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Simply stated, "Cultural Democracy" is the notion that everybody's heritage and cultural expression is worthwhile and deserving of an equitable share of whatever resources are available. In recent years, Cultural Democracy has also gained traction as a descriptor for the whole realm of participatory, community-centered arts activities, practiced by millions of Americans everyday in their homes, backyards, public parks, places of worship, schools — pretty much everywhere except in the designated art spaces of our museums and concert halls, where they happen infrequently.
The mechanisms that we have inherited for the support of public culture were inspired by the practices of the fine arts economy of the first half of the 20th century, and were designed to validate curatorial authority. This is the top-down version of culture. Financial and programmatic decision-making is vested in highly-trained, credentialed individuals who are positioned to determine what the entire community should see, hear and experience. Cultural Democracy requires a paradigm shift away from this curatorial model, and towards a process of continuous and intense community engagement, using culture as a catalyst for addressing social issues: art of the people, made by the people, and presented for the people.
James Bau Graves is Executive Director of the Old Town School of Folk Music, in Chicago, Illinois, the largest community school of the arts in the United States. His work is focused on exploration of the personal, political, aesthetic and ethical issues embedded in the concept and practice of public culture. He is the past Director of the Jefferson Center Foundation, in Roanoke, Virginia, and co-founder of the Center for Cultural Exchange in Maine, where he facilitated the creation of an extended series of programs, in close collaboration with community groups and artists, addressing grass roots cultural aspirations, questions of identity and social/financial power relations. Bau's work as a field researcher, arts presenter, community organizer, project manager and tour director has been prolific, winning numerous awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wallace Foundation, Americans for the Arts' Animating Democracy program, the Rockefeller Foundation, and many others. Bau has performed and recorded with several jazz and traditional music ensembles, and composed original scores for two collaborative projects with dancer/director Ann Carlson. He holds a Masters degree in ethnomusicology from Tufts University, has published essays concerning cultural issues in both the academic and popular press, and has appeared on and/or produced numerous recordings. Bau Graves' first book, Cultural Democracy, was published in 2005 by the University of Illinois Press.

For more information, please visit

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#july22

or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Traditional and Contemporary Basque Music from Idaho

The American Folklife Center presents the July concert in the Homegrown concert series:

AMUMA SAYS NO—Traditional and Contemporary Basque Music from Idaho
Wednesday, July 14 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Amuma Says No is among the best-known bands playing Basque music in America today. The band brings together the best of traditional trikitixa—a duo of accordion and tambourine–with a modern rhythm section and songs sung in the Basque language, Euskara. Based in Boise, Idaho, home of the largest community of Basques outside their home provinces along the French and Spanish Pyrenees, "ASN" have brought their energetic, exciting and contemporary arrangements of Basque music to Basque festivals and events throughout the west, including Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. Jill Aldape, Dan Ansotegui, Sean Uranga Aucutt and Spencer Basterrechea Martin, the founders, are second and third generation Americans. They grew up dancing with the Oinkari Basque Dancers and listening to Basque artists like Jimmy Jausoro and Domingo Ansotegui. Joined in the current lineup by Rod Wray and Micah Deffries, they present a timeless traditional repertory with a touch of twenty-first century rock, pop and jazz.

For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#july14 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Symposium Explores Culture Along Canada-U.S. Border

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Embassy of Canada, together with the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, present "Borderlines/Borderlands: Culture and the Canada-U.S. International Boundary" June 14-16 in Room 119 in the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C.

The symposium's opening event will be an evening film screening on Monday, June 14, at 7 p.m. of "To Brooklyn and Back," a recent documentary about the Quebec Mohawk community of Kahnawake, many members of which work in New York City as construction workers on skyscrapers, bridges and other "high steel" projects. Filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell will attend the screening, which will be held in the Mary Pickford Theater on the third floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E. A question and answer session with the filmmaker will follow.

"Borderlines/Borderlands" is free, but registration is recommended. For the complete schedule and to register online, visit www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/borders/index.html.

For more information, please contact Nancy Groce (202) 707-1744 or the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Cajun Music from Louisiana

MARCE LACOUTURE with guests David Greely and Kristi Guillory—Cajun Music from Louisiana
Wednesday, June 23 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Marce Lacouture grew up in Texas and Louisiana. She began singing professionally in Austin folk and rock bands, and in 1984 formed a duo with legendary singer-songwriter Butch Hancock. Together they recorded two collaborative albums, Yella Rose and Cause of the Cactus, and shared stages with such friends as Lyle Lovett, Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffith, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. In the 1980s, Marce headed to Louisiana to explore her Cajun heritage. Her search led to a years-long apprenticeship with traditional Louisiana French ballad singers Lula Landry and Inez Catalon. Marce's ability to bring alive the ancient ballads and home traditions of Louisiana makes her a sought-after performer and teacher. Marce's first solo recording, La Joie Cadienne, (Cajun Joy), is a loving tribute to her mentors.

For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#june23 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture: Hard Luck Blues

Hard Luck Blues: Roots Music Photographs from the Great Depression
book launch with Rich Remsberg, Documentarian & Author
Presented in cooperation with the Center for the Book, Library of Congress

June 2, 2010 - 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
6th floor, West Dining Room, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Showcasing American music and music making during the Great Depression, Hard Luck Blues presents more than two hundred photographs created by the New Deal's Farm Security Administration photography program. Rich Remsberg is an Emmy Award-winning archival image researcher who works primarily on PBS documentaries, including programs for American Masters, American Experience, and NOVA.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#june2 or call 202-707-5510.

Registration Now Open for AFC Symposium: Borders/Borderlands

June 14-16, 2010 at the Library of Congress

For general symposium information:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/borders/index.html

For the symposium schedule:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/borders/schedule.html

Registration is free but required for admission. Registration is now available:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/borders/registration/index.php

For more information, please visit www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Symposium- Borders/Borderlands: Culture and the Canada-U.S. International Boundary

June 14-16, 2010 at the Library of Congress

For the symposium schedule:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/borders/schedule.html

Registration is free but required for admission. Registration is now available:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/borders/registration/index.php

AFC Lecture: Folk Music from the Slovak Mountains

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Folk Music from the Slovak Mountains: Lecture/Demonstration of the Fujara and Other Overtone Flutes
presented by Bob Rychlik
May 27, 2010, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm, Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The fujara is the largest member of the overtone flute family. It developed in the seclusion of the Slovakian mountains, and, until recently, was barely known outside Slovakia. Even today, only a small number of traditional musicians play the instrument, and only a handful of craftsmen know how to make it. However, since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the fujara has been "discovered" by the rest of the music world, and an increasing number of musicians and listeners are embracing this magnificent "Queen of the flutes." The fujara's imposing size, (up to six feet long), and the intricate decorations on the flute's surface draw immediate attention, but listeners only begin to understand the true uniqueness of the fujara after hearing the first tones of its meditative, soulful, and overtone-rich voice.
The fujara was originally developed and played by Slovak shepherds. Its unique voice was used to play slow, lyrical, melancholic folk melodies, which the fujarist played in alternation with sung lyrics about various topics: shepherds' daily routines and hard lives; love; the beauty of nature; and the adventures, capture, and execution of forest outlaws. In this presentation, Bob Rychlik will demonstrate the fujara's versatility by playing examples from the traditional repertoire as well as classical and contemporary music, including several of his own compositions.
For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#may27 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Old-Time String Band Music from North Carolina

THE NEW NORTH CAROLINA RAMBLERS: Old-Time String Band Music
Wednesday, May 19 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The New North Carolina Ramblers is an old-time string band whose four musicians span almost three generations. The band was formed in the late 1960s by Kinney and Doug Rorrer, nephews of Charlie Poole and Posey Rorer, who were the original North Carolina Ramblers in the 1920s. Over the years, the New North Carolina Ramblers have featured many different local old-time musicians, but Kinney Rorrer has remained with the group since its genesis. Today, the band consists of Kinney, Kirk Sutphin, Darren Moore, and Jeremy Stephens. Kinney plays the banjo in the old-time three-finger picking style of Charlie Poole, and Kirk Sutphin can play the fiddle with same graceful touch that Posey Rorer had. They perform songs and tunes from the repertoire of Charlie Poole, and from many other old time artists. Darren Moore and Jeremy Stephens add their own take on classic Carter Family material. The New North Carolina Ramblers offer a variety of old time styles with a touch of down-home comedy.

For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#may19 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture: "Alan Lomax, The Man Who Recorded the World"

Alan Lomax, The Man Who Recorded the World: A Bio-Ethnography

John Szwed, John M. Musser Professor of Anthropology, African American Studies, Music, and American Studies at Yale University

May 5, 2010, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm, Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

It seems odd that no biography of Alan Lomax was written before now, especially given that many of the folk music performers whom Lomax discovered have had biographies of their own. True, Lomax was not a well known performer like Pete Seeger. He never held an academic post or a high government position, nor did he receive international or even national awards for his work until the very end of his life. But he was arguably one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century, a man who changed how everyone heard music and even how they viewed America. When he died, newspaper and TV news reporters pointed out that he had been a musicologist, archivist, singer, DJ, filmmaker, photographer, author of 19 books, producer of dozens of radio, TV, video, and concert programs and hundreds of recordings, in addition to being the world's most famous folklorist. They might have added that he was also an anthropologist, political activist, lobbyist, and in his later years, something of a social theorist in the grand tradition of the nineteenth century.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#may5 or call 202-707-5510.

BALLA KOUYATÉ and WORLD VISION to Open American Folklife Center Homegrown Series on April 28

The American Folklife Center's annual concert series, "Homegrown 2010: The Music of America," opens with a noontime concert on April 28 in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. Homegrown concerts are produced by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in cooperation with the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. They are videotaped and added to the center's permanent collections of folk music, and posted on the Center's website as webcasts.

This inaugural concert features Balla Kouyaté from Massachusetts, a griot and virtuoso player of the balaphon, the ancient West African ancestor of the xylophone. Played with mallets, the balaphon is made up of wood slats of varying lengths. Underneath, two rows of calabash gourds serve as natural amplifiers. Kouyaté was born into a musical family that goes back over 800 years to Balla Faséké, the first of an unbroken line of djelis, or griots, in the Kouyaté clan. The members of this family are regarded as the original praise-singers of the Malinké people, one of the ethnic groups found across much of West Africa. He often accompanies kora master Mamadou Diabate, 2009 Grammy winner in Traditional World Music, and in 2010 he was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in the Traditional Arts. Kouyaté also leads the fusion group World Vision.

The Homegrown concert series presents the very best of traditional music and dance from a variety of folk cultures thriving in the United States. The concerts will be held once a month from April through December. All concerts are free of charge and are presented from noon to 1 p.m in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. SE, Washington, DC. The closest Metro stops are Capitol South (blue and orange lines) and Union Station (red line).

For more information about this concert and upcoming concerts, please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture: Flour Mills, Social Memory, and Vernacular Culture in Sonora, Mexico

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series:

"And Wheat Completed the Cycle:" Flour Mills, Social Memory, and Vernacular Culture in Sonora, Mexicoâ by Maribel Alvarez, University of Arizona

Wednesday, April 21, 12:00 noon, Pickford Theater, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

In this talk about her research as a Fulbright Fellow in Sonora, Mexico for the last nine months, folklorist and anthropologist Maribel Alvarez explores the role of wheat â a grain introduced by the Spanish to Mexico in the 16th century â as a central element in the construction of a distinct regional identity that prides itself on a simultaneous, and often contradictory, association with tradition AND modernity. Her research on wheat embraces a multidisciplinary approach that illuminates in both scholarly and popular ways the existence of a "wheat-based worldview" in Sonora expressed through what Sonorans eat, how they talk, how they labor, and what they deem to be the greatest contribution of Sonoran farmers to humanity.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#april21 or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Announces 2010 Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Please join us this year for:

"And Wheat Completed the Cycle:" Flour Mills, Social Memory, and Vernacular Culture in Sonora, Mexico" by Maribel Alvarez, University of Arizona, Wednesday, April 21, Pickford Theater

"'Alan Lomax - The Man Who Recorded the World'": A Bio-Ethnography" by John Szwed, Yale University, Wednesday, May 5, Pickford Theater

"Folk Music from the Slovakian Mountains: Lecture/Demonstration of Fujara and Other Overtone Flutes." by Bob Rychilik, Thursday, May 27, Coolidge Auditorium

"Hard Luck Blues" book launch with Rich Remsberg, Documentarian & Author, Wednesday, June 2, 2010, James Madison Building, West Dining Room

"Cultural Democracy in a Time of Diminished Resources" by Bau Graves, Old Town School of Music, Chicago, Thursday, July 22, Pickford Theater

"Place and the Politics of Belonging" by Debra Lattanzi Shutika, Dept of English, George Mason University, Thursday August 12, Pickford Theatre

"Translating Africa in Global Contexts" by Lee Haring, Professor Emeritus, Brooklyn College, Wednesday, September 22, Pickford Theatre

"The Makers of the Sacred Harp" by Warren David Steel, University of Mississippi, Thursday, October 22, Pickford Theater

Lectures take place at noon. For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html or call
202-707-5510.

AFC Announces Homegrown Concerts for 2010

Please join us this year for:

April 28: Balla Kouyate and World Vision, Malian music from Massachusetts
May 19: New North Carolina Ramblers, old-time string band from North Carolina
Jun 23: Marce Lacoutoure and friends, Cajun music from Louisiana
July 14: Amuma Says No, traditional and contemporary Basque music from Idaho
August 25: Steve Meisner and friends, Milwaukee-Slovenian style Polka from Wisconsin
Sept 15: Marimba Linda Xelaju, traditional Guatamalan music from Maryland
Oct 13: Not Too Bad Bluegrass Band, bluegrass from Indiana
Nov 17: R. Carlos Nakai, Native American Flute player from Arizona
Dec 2: McIntosh County Shouters, Gullah-Geechee traditional ring-shout from Georgia

All concerts take place from noon to 1:00 pm in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress. For further information, please visit www.loc.gov/folklife and click on Homegrown Concerts, or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture-- Folklore and Seeing: Photographs from Cummins Prison, 1915-2010

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Folklore and Seeing: Photographs from Cummins Prison, 1915-2010

presented by Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture at University at Buffalo

March 25, 2010, 12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m., Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

In two separate decisions in 1969 and 1970, U.S. District Judge J. Smith Henley declared the Arkansas prison system unconstitutional on the grounds that it was cruel and unusual punishment. This was the first time a state’s prison system had been declared illegal. A year later, ethnographer Bruce Jackson made a brief visit to Cummins prison in Grady, Arkansas. In the course of seven visits between 1971 and 1975, he took more than four thousand photographs. In this lecture, he'll talk about his photographic exploration of Cummins, explain how he got access to the prison, and show some of the images, which were captured during fieldwork thirty years ago, and then rescued by today's technology.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Prints and Photographs Division.

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#march25 or call 202-707-5510.

Hold the Date for AFC Symposium: Borderlines / Borderlands: Culture and the Canadian-U.S. International Boundary

This free public symposium, co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Canadian Embassy, will be held on June 15 & June 16, 2010 and will bring together leading Canadian and U.S. scholars to explore the history, cultures, and traditions of regions and communities along the U.S.-Canada border. More information and a web link to on-line registration will be available shortly.

AFC Announces New Link to Webcasts

The American Folklife Center is thrilled to announce that 125 AFC and Veteran's History Project webcasts are now available and easily accessed from our homepage! Go to http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/pasteventsmenu.html

American Folklife Center Parsons and Reed Fund Awards

The American Folklife Center invites applications for the 2010 Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award, and the 2010 Henry Reed Fund Award. Application deadline is March 12.

AFC Lecture: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, an illustrated lecture by William R. Ferris, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

February 17, 2010, 12:00 Noon – 1:00 p.m., Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building

William R. Ferris is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an adjunct professor in the Folklore Curriculum. He is associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and is widely recognized as a leader in Southern studies, African-American music and folklore.

Ferris has written and edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films, most of which deal with African American music and other folklore representing the Mississippi Delta. He co-edited the Pulitzer Prize nominee Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, which contains entries on every aspect of Southern culture and is widely recognized as a major reference work linking popular, folk, and academic cultures.

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#february17 or call 202-707-5510.

Veterans History Project RSS

If you are interested in the American Folklife Center news, you might also enjoy receiving periodic updates from our Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.

AFC is now on Facebook-- Become a Fan!

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the launch of an AFC page on Facebook. Please become our fan to see what we are up to! You'll be introduced to classic folk, blues and world music, see photos and video webcasts from our collections, and receive updates about our concerts and other events. Go to http://www.facebook.com/americanfolklifecenter and click on "Become a Fan" today.

AFC Legends & Legacies Concert-- Webcast Now Available

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (AFC) announces that a webcast of the "Legends and Legacies" concert is now available on line -- please visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4778

The concert, presented as part of the symposium "Legends and Legacies: An American Folklife Center Celebration of Public Folklore," was held September 10, 2009, in celebration of folklorist Joe Wilson and the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) Collection, which was recently acquired by the AFC. During the evening event Joe Wilson received a Living Legend Award from the Librarian of Congress with a tribute by Representative David Obey (D-WI). Performers include Bill McComiskey, Brendan Mulvihill, Tom Mauchahty-Ware, The New Ballard's Branch Bogtrotters, The Sweet Heaven Kings, and Phil Wiggins.

For information about other Legends and Legacies symposium events, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/LegendsLegacies/

The Legends and Legacies symposium was sponsored and co-produced by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the National Council for the Traditional Arts.

AFC Lecture: Irish and Jewish Influences on the Music of Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley

December 1, 2009, 12:00 Noon - 1:00 p.m.
Whittall Pavilion, Thomas Jefferson Building

If It Wasn't for the Irish and the Jews: Irish and Jewish Influences on the Music of Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley

presented by Mick Moloney, Global Distinguished Professor of Music, New York University

Mick Moloney's illustrated talk on Jewish and Irish collaborations in vaudeville and early Tin Pan Alley explores a fascinating, though largely forgotten, era in American popular culture. Rich with biographical details and period and contemporary recordings, this is a charming story of decades of good natured inter-ethnic flux, competition and cooperation that left a lasting imprint on the history of American popular music.

Reminder: Norwegian-American Music at AFC

THE BERNTSONS: Traditional Norwegian-American dance music from Virginia

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2009 at 12:00 noon, Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Around 1900, a Norwegian immigrant named Bernt Berntson Bradskerud purchased a violin in a northern Wisconsin logging camp and gave it to his ten-year-old son, Bennie. Bennie began playing learning Scandinavian folk tunes from fiddlers in his rural Wisconsin immigrant community. These tunes became the backbone of the repertoire for the Berntsons. In the 1930s, Bennie Berntson's son Maurice and daughter Eleanore joined the family music circle. Today, the Berntsons are alive and well, and heading into their second century of music-making.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#december3 or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Traditional Norwegian-American dance music from Virginia

AFC Announces Alan Lomax Fellowship at Kluge Center

The Library of Congress's Kluge Center invites qualified scholars to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship for advanced research based on the Alan Lomax Collection. The Alan Lomax Fellowship, established for a period of five years, supports scholarly research that contributes significantly to a greater understanding of the work of Lomax and the cultural traditions he documented over the course of a vigorous and highly productive seventy-year career. Fellows are in residence at the Library for a period of up to 8 months and have the opportunity to access and use original materials from the Lomax Collection and other collections of the Library of Congress. The Fellowship program supports research in the disciplines of anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnography, ethno-history, dance, folklore and folklife, history, literature, linguistics, and movement analysis, with particular emphasis on the traditional music, dance, and narrative of the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean, as well as methodologies for their documentation and analysis. Interdisciplinary projects that combine disciplines in novel and productive ways are encouraged. The annual application deadline is February 28, with the fellowship commencing anytime after September 1st of that same year. For an application and additional information on other Kluge Center fellowships, see: www.loc.gov/loc/kluge or please contact The Kluge Center at (202) 707-3302 or scholarly@loc.gov. For more information about the Lomax Collection, see: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/lomax/

Reminder--Texas Rhythm and Blues concert on Wednesday

BARBARA LYNN & FRIENDS — Texas Rhythm and Blues

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:00 noon

Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress  

Barbara Lynn is a rhythm and blues singer and left-handed guitarist from Texas. In the 1950s, inspired by blues artists Guitar Slim and Jimmy Reed, and pop acts Elvis Presley and Brenda Lee, she created an all-female band, Bobbie Lynn and Her Idols. Her first single "You'll Lose a Good Thing" was a #1 R&B hit and a Top 10 pop hit in 1962, and was later a country hit for Freddy Fender. Soon Lynn was touring with such soul music greats as Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Ike and Tina Turner, and The Temptations. She appeared at the Apollo Theatre and twice on American Bandstand, and her song, "Oh Baby (We've Got a Good Thing Goin')” was recorded by The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone's David Fricke has noted that Lynn continues to display “undiminished grace and poise, pouring a lifetime of blues and wisdom into her delivery.”

AFC Archie Green Fellowship -- November 30 deadline

Deadline Approaching for New American Folklife Center Fellowship to Honor Archie Green

To honor the memory of Archie Green (1917-2009), the pioneering folklorist who championed the establishment of the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress, a fellowship program has been established at the AFC. The Archie Green Fellowships will support new documentation and research into the culture and traditions of American workers and will create digital archival materials that will be preserved in the AFC’s archive and made available to researchers and the public.

The AFC will award up to three fellowships for the period February 2010 - February 2011 that will support original field research into the culture and traditions of American workers and/or occupational groups found within the United States. The materials generated during the course of the fellowship will become part of the AFC’s Archie Green America Works Collection.

Applicants must submit proposals to be received by the AFC no later than November 30, 2009. The term of each fellowship will be limited to a period of one year and will be supported with funds up to $45,000.

U.S. citizens are eligible to submit applications for a fellowship to support their original research and documentation on occupational culture. Applicants may include individuals, organizations, or groups. Occupational groups, labor unions or organizations may wish to involve folklife researchers for the purpose of undertaking fieldwork projects on their behalf.

For further information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/grants.html#archie or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert: Texas Rhythm and Blues

BARBARA LYNN & FRIENDS — Texas Rhythm and Blues

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:00 noon

Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress  

Barbara Lynn is a rhythm and blues singer and left-handed guitarist from Texas. Lynn toured with such soul music greats as Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations. Her song, "Oh Baby (We've Got a Good Thing Goin')” was recorded by The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone's David Fricke has noted that Lynn continues to display “undiminished grace and poise, pouring a lifetime of blues and wisdom into her delivery.”

For more information, please visit
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#november18
or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture: Yiddish-American Radio 1925-1955

October 14, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm, Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building

While all other aspects of Yiddish culture existed wherever Ashkenazic Jews lived, it was only in America that radio realized its greatest and most fulfilling use by and for Jews. Yiddish scholar Henry Sapoznik discusses and shares some of the most memorable and powerful moments in this nearly lost world of ethnic American broadcasting.

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#oct14 or call 202-707-5510.

Register now for Baseball Symposium at the Library-- Space is Limited!

"Baseball Americana" will be held at the Library of Congress on October 2 and 3, 2009. Speakers will include Hall of Fame player Ernie Banks, All-Star pitcher, broadcaster, and manager Larry Dierker, baseball language expert Paul Dickson, and Negro Leagues pitcher Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, among many others. The event is sponsored by the American Folklife Center and coordinated with the launch of the Library's Publishing Office's new book, Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress. Admission is free, but advance registration is required. To register, please visit

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/Baseball/registration.php

AFC Concert: Cowboy poet PAUL ZARZYSKI and cowboy singer-composer WYLIE GUSTAFSON â from Montana

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

As poets, songwriters and horsemen, Wylie Gustafson and Paul Zarzyski have pursued their writing and riding passions for over 35 years. Wylie Gustafson is a full-time cutting horse trainer and competitor, as well as a full-time musician. He has recorded over fifteen albums, and has played thousands of venues around the world, including more than fifty appearances on The Grand Ole Opry. Paul Zarzyski has spent fifteen seasons as a bareback bronco rider on the amateur, pro, and senior circuits. In addition to his eight collections of printed work, he has recorded four spoken-word CDs. According to Mark Bedor of American Cowboy magazine, they're "like Lennon and McCartney in cowboy hats."

For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0910-folklife.html#october7
or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC and StoryCorps announce "Historias"

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress will be the repository for personal interviews with Latino Americans from across the United States as StoryCorps launches its “Historias” mobile booth.

The national launch of StoryCorps Historias will be held on Thursday, Sept. 24, from 10 - 11 a.m., at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C.

AFC Botkin Lecture: Place Making and the Religious Imagination in Italian New York

Built with Faith: Place Making and the Religious Imagination in Italian New York, presented by Joseph Sciorra, Queens University, City University of New York

September 23, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building

This presentation examines how Italian Americans create and use vernacular architecture, material culture, and ceremonial display to inscribe meaning on New York City's religious and cultural landscapes. Yard shrines, sidewalk altars, Christmas displays, and other creative productions transform everyday urban space into unique, communal sites of religiosity. Sciorra is especially interested in how people remember, imagine, and interpret the city, as well as people's relationships to the divine at these sites during times of changing, global forces such as de/post-industrialization, suburbanization, migration, and gentrification.

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#sept23 or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

Library Symposium on Baseball

Baseball fans are sure to enjoy the upcoming event “Baseball Americana,” which will be held at the Library of Congress on October 2 and 3, 2009. Speakers will include Hall of Fame player Ernie Banks, All-Star pitcher, broadcaster, and manager Larry Dierker, baseball language expert Paul Dickson, and Negro Leagues pitcher Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, among many others. The event is sponsored by the American Folklife Center and coordinated with the launch of the Library’s Publishing Office’s new book, Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress. Admission is free, but advance registration is required. To register, please visit

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/Baseball/registration.php

Legends and Legacies Concert: new information

The concert, “Legends & Legacies: Celebrating Joe Wilson and the NCTA Collection” will feature performances by blues masters Phil Wiggins and Corey Harris, Irish-American accordion and fiddle musicians Billy McComiskey and Brendan Mulvihill with special guests Mick Moloney and Josh Dukes, Kiowa and Comanche music and dancers led by Tom Ware, southwest Virginia old-time string band music by the New Ballard’s Branch Bogtrotters, and high-energy gospel brass from the Sweet Heaven Kings, a United House of Prayer shout band. During the concert, Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington, and Representative David Obey will confer the Library’s “Living Legend” award on Joe Wilson for his lifelong work in public folklore. Concert is at 7:00 pm on September 10 in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium. Please visit: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/LegendsLegacies/concerts.html

Legends and Legacies: An American Folklife Center Celebration of Public Folklore

On September 10-11, 2009, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress will host a two-day event including a tribute, a symposium, and a concert, honoring folklorists Archie Green and Joe Wilson, and celebrating the acquisition of the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) Collection by the Center's archive. The multifaceted event, entitled Legends and Legacies: An American Folklife Center Celebration of Public Folklore, will feature spoken tributes, musical performances, panel discussions, and rare glimpses at archival treasures.

The event will be crowned by a magnificent evening concert at 8:00 pm on September 10 in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium. The concert, Legends & Legacies: Celebrating Joe Wilson and the NCTA Collection, will feature performances by blues harmonica master Phil Wiggins, Irish-American accordion and fiddle musicians Billy McComiskey and Brendan Mulvihill, Kiowa and Comanche music and dancers led by Tom Ware, southwest Virginia old-time string band music by the New Ballard's Branch Bogtrotters, and high-energy gospel brass from the Sweet Heaven Kings, a United House of Prayer shout band. All these artists have participated in the National Folk Festival and NCTA touring programs. During the concert, Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington, and Representative David Obey will confer the Library's Living Legend award on Joe Wilson for his lifelong work in public folklore.

Attendance at both events is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Registration and more information will be available shortly through the AFC website, at www.loc.gov/folklife.

AFC Lecture: Documenting Katrina and Rita in Houston

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Documenting Katrina and Rita in Houston
presented by Carl Lindahl, University of Houston and Pat Jasper, Austin, Texas

August 13, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston is the first large-scale project, anywhere, in which the survivors of a major disaster have taken the lead in documenting it. The project's goal is to voice, as intimately as possible, the experiences and reflections of those displaced to Houston by the two major hurricanes that pounded the Gulf Coast in August and September of 2005. The heart of the project is stories: stories told by survivors, to survivors, on the survivors' own terms. Project co-directors Carl Lindahl and Pat Jasper hear in these narratives the seeds of recovery: it is the conviction of the project and its many participants that to survive is not merely to secure food, clothing, and the essentials of daily life, but also to help shape one's future by taking control of one's own story. While media treatments of the survivors have too often depicted criminals or, at best, victims, the voices of the survivors themselves have portrayed selfless friends, compassionate strangers, loving neighbors, and, above all, heroes. Carl Lindahl and Pat Jasper will describe the genesis of the project and the field school that they developed in conjunction with the American Folklife Center to train survivors. They will discuss current research on the 432 interviews conducted to date, and describe public programming that has brought the survivors into contact with their new neighbors in Houston through panel discussions, radio broadcasts, museum installations, and musical events.

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#august13 or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC concert-- traditional Indian Karaikudi vina music from Oregon

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents the August concert in the 2009 Homegrown season:

SREEVIDHYA CHANDRAMOULI & FRIENDS: traditional Indian Karaikudi vina music from Oregon

August 20, 2009 at 12:00 noon

Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Sreevidhya Chandramouli plays the vina, a plucked Indian lute with a fretboard spanning three and a half octaves. She was trained in the Karaikudi vina tradition, the only school of south Indian vina players that goes back more than ten generations. Sreevidhya learned from her mother, Rajeswari Padmanabhan, who is a ninth-generation exponent, and a granddaughter of Karaikudi Subbarama Iyer, who is considered one of the founders of the Karaikudi style of veena playing. Sreevidhya later pursued vocal training with the late Sri. Vairamanagalam Lakshminarayanan and Smt. Suguna Varadachari in Chennai, India. Sreevidhya earned a Masters degree in music at the University of Madras in 1988, and has lived in Portland, Oregon since the late 1980s. She has served as a visiting artist at the University of Washington and as an artist-in-residence at the University of Oregon, where she offers regular lecture demonstrations on Indian music and culture. Her performance and teaching career spans over 25 years, and includes appearances in Asia, Europe and North America. Along with her mother, she was featured in the book The Singer & the Song: Conversations with Women Musicians by C.S. Lakshmi (2000).

The Homegrown series is co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage. The series is free and open to the general public. Each concert is recorded by the AFC for webcast and for permanent deposit in the Center's archive.

For more information, please visit
http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-folklife.html#august20
or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

Save the date for AFC September symposium

The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce a two-day event, honoring two special people. On September 10-11, 2009, the Center will host a tribute, symposium, and concert honoring folklorists Archie Green and Joe Wilson. This event will also celebrate the acquisition of the National Council for Traditional Arts (NCTA) collection by the Center. The multifaceted event will feature spoken tributes, musical performances, panel discussions, and rare glimpses at archival treasures, and will be crowned by a magnificent evening concert in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium. The concert will showcase outstanding folk musicians who have been part of NCTA festivals, tours and other programs.

The event’s first day of speakers and musical performances will celebrate the life and achievements of Dr. Archie Green (1917-2009). After serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the New Deal era, and in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Green earned a. M.L.S. and a Ph.D. and worked as a folklorist and a librarian. He was a pioneer in the study of labor-related folklore, and of early recordings of American folk and country music. He was the author of eight books, and many academic articles, on folklore and labor. During the 1970s, Green put his academic career on hold to come to Washington and lobby Congress for the creation of an American Folklife Center. This ambitious goal was achieved with the creation of the AFC in 1976. Archie Green, who died on March 22 2009, was presented with a Living Legend award by the Librarian of Congress in 2007.

The second day of presentations will showcase the contributions of the NCTA and Joe Wilson, who was the director of NCTA (1976 - 2004) and subsequently assumed the position of NCTA chairman. A native of Trade, Tennessee in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Wilson currently directs NCTA’s Blue Ridge Music Center, located on the Blue Ridge Parkway. In his career, he has produced forty-two large-scale music festivals in eleven states, twenty-one national tours by musicians and dancers, nine international tours that visited thirty-three nations, and 131 LP and CD audio recordings of various forms of folk music. He has also been involved in the production of twelve films. In 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a National Heritage Fellowship to Joe Wilson. This is the highest honor the nation accords artists and workers in the traditional arts. As part of the Library’s tribute to Wilson, the Librarian of Congress will present him with a Living Legend award on September 10, 2009.

In addition to celebrating the careers of Green and Wilson, the event celebrates the Library’s acquisition of the NCTA collection, an unparalleled assemblage of archival recordings of folk music. Founded in 1934, the NCTA created the first National Folk Festival (still being produced annually), and pioneered the national and international touring of grassroots artists. Out of this experience, NCTA has created an archive of original audio and moving image recordings of traditional artists, musicians and dancers dating from the 1930s. The collection contains classic recordings of now-legendary artists (such as Tommy Jarrell, Elizabeth Cotten, Wade Mainer, John Cephas, Edith Butler, and the Blind Boys of Alabama), as well as the only extant recordings of many artists. The NCTA began using professional portable recording equipment to document their festivals and concerts some thirty years before other presenters of folk arts, with the result that the NCTA collection has excellent sound quality. These historic recordings are now being digitized, and all audio materials through 1999 are now available to researchers in the Folklife Reading Room at the Library of Congress. The American Folklife Center symposium on September 11, 2009, will include speakers who have an intimate knowledge of the NCTA collection and will provide a rare opportunity for attendees to view and discuss some of the treasures and highlights of this spectacular collection.

AFC Concert-- a capella gospel music from Kentucky

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents the July concert in the 2009 Homegrown season:

NORTHERN KENTUCKY BROTHERHOOD SINGERS-- quartet style a capella gospel music from Kentucky

July 16, 2009 at 12:00 noon

Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers of Covington, Kentucky, is among the very few remaining quartet-style groups that still perform a cappella. The Singers, consisting of Eric Riley, Ric Jennings, Greg Page, Shaka Tyehimba, Stace Darden & Demetrius Davenport, specialize in the intricate and emotional four-part harmony "jubilee" style pioneered by such legendary groups as the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Golden Gate Quartet, and the Soul Stirrers. The Brotherhood Singers started singing at the 9th Street Baptist Church in Covington. The group has performed in churches and secular music venues, as well as on television, throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada and Spain, which they have toured 14 times.

The Homegrown series is co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage. The series is free and open to the general public. Each concert is recorded by the AFC for webcast and for permanent deposit in the Center's archive. For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-folklife.html - july16 or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert-- Aztec dance from Pennsylvania

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents the June concert in the 2009 Homegrown season:

OLLIN YOLIZTLI CALMECAC—Aztec dance ensemble from Pennsylvania

June 18, 2009 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac (which translates from the Aztec language as "School of the Blood Moving in the Heart") performs thoroughly researched recreations of ancient Aztec music and dance from Mexico.

The group was founded by Daniel Chico Lorenzo and Brujo de la Mancha in 2003. Daniel has extensive knowledge of ancient Mexican culture and languages; his first language was Nahuatl, an indigenous Mesoamerican language closely related to the one spoken by the ancient Aztecs. Brujo is a multidisciplinary artist, and became the dance and music teacher for OYC when Daniel returned to his hometown in December 2006. Brujo also makes the group’s musical instruments and choreographs their dances. The members of OYC are immigrants from various parts of Mexico, residing in and around Philadelphia. They see their troupe as a chance to teach both Mexicans and Americans about their shared indigenous history. Dressed in animal skins, feathers and ankle shakers made from seeds, the dancers pay respect to the four corners of the planet before beginning their dance, which is accompanied by the huehuetl (drum). They perform frequently at community events throughout the Philadelphia region, and are particularly known for celebrations of the Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, Summer Solstice, and other holidays celebrated by their Aztec forebears and their Mexican contemporaries.

The Homegrown series is co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage. The series is free and open to the general public. Each concert is recorded by the AFC for webcast and for permanent deposit in the Center’s archive. For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/0809-folklife.html#june18 or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture-- Filmmaker John Cohen presents The High Lonesome Sound Revisited: Documenting Traditional Culture in America

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

The High Lonesome Sound Revisited: Documenting Traditional Culture in America
presented by filmmaker John Cohen

June 11, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm, Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

In the early 1960s, the multitalented musician, filmmaker, and photographer John Cohen journeyed to eastern Kentucky to document the songs of church-goers, miners, and farmers, and the rural community that produced and sustained their uniquely American sound. The result was The High Lonesome Sound, a classic 1963 documentary film than evocatively illustrates how music and religion help Appalachian people maintain their dignity and traditions in the face of change and hardship. Featuring master traditional musician Roscoe Holcomb, Cohen's film also documented how different musical strands are synthesized in the playing of an individual performer. In this presentation, Cohen will discuss the making of his influential documentary, its initial reception, and its continued impact in the shaping of documentary filmmaking and ethnographic research on traditional culture both in the United States and abroad.

A respected musician and founding member of the seminal old-time string band "The New Lost City Ramblers," John Cohen has also had an equally distinguished career as a filmmaker, photographer, and record producer. The term "high lonesome sound," which he coined for his legendary 1963 documentary film, has become synonymous with an entire genre of American music. In addition to extensive fieldwork and documentation of Appalachian culture, Cohen has done important ethnographic research throughout the United States, Britain, and the Peruvian Andes. His highly-praised publication, There Is No Eye: John Cohen Photographs (2001), and the complementary Smithsonian Folkways CD There Is No Eye: Music For Photographs, brought together several threads of Cohen's work over the past fifty years. As a producer, his many noteworthy recordings include Smithsonian Folkways' releases An Untamed Sense of Control by Roscoe Holcomb), Dark Holler by Dillard Chandler, The Lost Recordings of Banjo Bill Cornett, If I Had My Way by Rev. Gary Davis, and the compilation Back Roads to Cold Mountain. Cohen worked with T-Bone Burnett as music consultant to the film "Cold Mountain," and appeared in Martin Scorcese's film about Bob Dylan, "No Direction Home."

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#june11 or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Concert-- Cape Breton fiddle music

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents the first concert in the 2009 Homegrown season:

BRENDAN CAREY BLOCK & FRIENDS -- Cape Breton fiddle music from New Hampshire

Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 12:00 noon
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Brendan Carey Block is a multi-faceted fiddler from New Hampshire, grounded in the musical traditions of New England and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He has been performing since the age of ten and has made many trips to Cape Breton to learn from master fiddlers and be immersed in the Scottish-based heritage of the island. Brendan has achieved wide recognition for his virtuosic fiddling and was named the U.S. National Junior Scottish Fiddle Champion for 2000 and 2001. Brendan has toured and recorded with many great artists including the renowned Glengarry Bhoys, the Boston-based band Annalivia, and his own duo project with guitarist Flynn Cohen. In this concert, he will perform his traditional repertoire of jigs, reels, and airs. Brendan is also and avid dogsledder and raises Siberian huskies.

The 2009 Homegrown concert series presents the best of traditional music and dance “homegrown” in the United States, as selected by state folklorists from around the nation. Upcoming concerts include: June 18, Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac, Aztec dance from Pennsylvania; July 16, Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers, quartet style a capella gospel music from Kentucky; August 20, Sreevidhya Chandramouli and friends, Northern Indian Vina music from Oregon; September 16, Wayne Newell and Blanche Sockabasin, traditional Passamaquoddy music from Maine; October 7, Rodeo poet Paul Zarzyski and cowboy singer-composer Wylie Gustafson from Montana; November 18, Barbara Lynn and friends, Texas Rhythm and Blues; and December 3, The Berntsons, Traditional Norwegian-American dance music from Virginia.

The Homegrown series is co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage. The series is free and open to the general public. Each concert is recorded by the AFC for webcast and for permanent deposit in the Center’s archive. For more information, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/index.html or call the Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture Today! The Sound of Islamic Music: Women's Voices and the Indonesian Religious Soundscape

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

The Sound of Islamic Music: Women's Voices and the Indonesian Religious Soundscape

presented by Anne K. Rasmussen, Associate Professor of Music and Ethnomusicology, College of William and Mary

May 13, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
 Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Based on more than two years of ethnographic research in the Indonesian Archipelago, and derived from her book Women's Voices, the Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia (University of California Press), Anne Rasmussen’s lecture introduces a rich world of Indonesian Islamic music. She includes sound and video clips, and profiles both leading artists and grass-roots communities. Her attention to the actions of women who work as ritual specialists and religious artists — from Qur’an reciters to recording artists — brings to light a little-documented but very dynamic area of both Indonesian culture and Islamic performance.

Anne K. Rasmussen is associate professor of music and ethnomusicology at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia where she also directs the William and Mary Middle Eastern Music Ensemble and serves as chair of the Middle East Studies Faculty. In September 2008, she was appointed University Professor for Teaching Excellence. Her research and teaching expertise include American musical multiculturalism, music and community among the Arab diaspora, music-cultures of the Middle East and the Arab world, and music of the Islamic world, particularly Indonesia, where she has been engaged for the last ten years in a project on Islamic musical arts. She is a former Fulbright senior scholar and has served as the First Vice President of the Society for Ethnomusicology. She is the recipient of the Jaap Kunst prize for the best article published in the field of ethnomusicology in 2001, and the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award.

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#may13 or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Announces Three Robert Burns Symposium Webcasts, Now Available Online

The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce that the webcasts for both days of the symposium, Robert Burns at 250: Poetry, Politics & Performance, are now available via our website.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, the American Folklife Center, in collaboration with the Scottish government as part of its Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebration, presented a free public symposium on Burns's life and work, as well as his impact on America and American culture.

The symposium began with a keynote address by Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland; a talk on "America's Bard" by Robert Crawford, professor of literature at the University of St. Andrews; and readings and performances of Burns's works by renowned Scottish scholars and performers Margaret Bennett, Ed Miller, and broadcaster Billy Kay.

The second day of the symposium featured Nat Edwards, from the National Library of Scotland; Ted Cowan and Valentina Bold from the University of Glasgow; BBC commentator Billy Kay; Marc Lambert, chief executive of the Scottish Book Trust; Myra Sklarew, former president of the Yaddo artist community and professor at American University; and Poet Laureate of the United States, Kay Ryan.

To view the webcasts, please visit:

DAY ONE:
http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4514

DAY TWO, SESSION 1:
http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4524

DAY TWO, SESSION 2:
http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4525

To learn more about the symposium, please visit: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/Burns/program.html

AFC Lecture-- We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi-- lecture and book signing
presented by Tracy Sugarman

Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm
Mumford Room Sixth Floor, James Madison Memorial Building, Library of Congress

As an illustrator and journalist, Tracy Sugarman covered the nearly one thousand student volunteers who traveled to the Mississippi Delta to assist black citizens in the South in registering to vote. Two white students and one black student were slain in the struggle, many were beaten and hundreds arrested, and churches and homes were burned to the ground by the opponents of equality. Yet the example of Freedom Summer resonated across the nation. The United States Congress was finally moved to pass the civil rights legislation that enfranchised millions of black Americans.

Blending oral history with memoir, We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns chronicles the sacrifices, tragedies, and triumphs of that unprecedented moment in American history. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Tracy Sugarman is a nationally recognized illustrator whose art has appeared in magazines and books, and has been featured on PBS, ABC TV, NBC TV, and CBS TV. He is the author of Stranger at the Gates: A Summer in Mississippi, My War: A Love Story in Letters and Drawings, and Drawing Conclusions: An Artist Discovers His America. The Veterans History Project, a program of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, has acquired Sugarmanâs collection of art from World War II.

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html#may5 or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

AFC Announces 2009 Botkin Lecture Series

The American Folklife Center announces the 2009 season of lectures in the Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lecture series:

April 30
--Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Georgetown University--
Warning of Global Warming? Voices of Ecological, Cultural, and Political Change in Siberia

May 5
--Tracy Sugarman, Illustrator, Author, and Civil Rights Chronicler--
We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi

May 13
--Anne Rasmussen, College of William & Mary--
The Sound of Islamic Music: Women's Voices and the Indonesian Religious Soundscape

June 11
--John Cohen, Documentary Filmmaker--
The High Lonesome Sound Revisited: Documenting Traditional Culture in America

August 13
--Carl Lindahl, University of Houston and Pat Jasper, Austin, Texas--
Documenting Katrina and Rita in Houston

September 23
--Joseph Sciorra, Queens University, City University of New York--
Built with Faith: Place Making and the Religious Imagination in Italian New York

October 14
--Henry Sapoznik, University of Wisconsin--
The Stations of the Nation: Yiddish-American Radio 1925-1955.

All lectures are 12 noon - 1 p.m. in the Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress. Lectures are free and open to the public.

For more information, please visit: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-lectures.html
or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Announces 2009 Homegrown Concert Season

The American Folklife Center announces the 2009 season of concerts in the Homegrown series:

2009 Homegrown-- the Music of America

Co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage

All concerts are 12 noon â 1 p.m. in Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

May 28
Brendan Carey Block and friends, Cape Breton fiddle music from New Hampshire

June 18
Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac, Aztec dance from Pennsylvania

July 16
Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers, quartet style a capella gospel music from Kentucky

August 20
Sreevidhya Chandramouli and friends, Northern Indian Vina music from Oregon

September 16
Wayne Newell and Blanche Sockabasin, traditional Passamaquoddy music from Maine

October 7
Rodeo poet Paul Zarzyski and cowboy singer-composer Wylie Gustafson from Montana

November 18
Barbara Lynn and friends, Texas Rhythm and Blues

December 3
The Berntsons, Traditional Norwegian-American dance music from Virginia

AFC Lecture: Shamanic Tradition, Politics and Ecological Change in Siberia

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Warning of Global Warming? Shamanic Tradition, Politics and Ecological Change in Siberia

presented by Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Georgetown University

April 30, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm -- Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Siberian indigenous peoples' striving for self-determination and spiritual vitality has been an impressive trend in the past twenty years, but their efforts are threatened by political, social and ecological change. This talk, based on long-term fieldwork in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and beyond, probes the implications of indigenous peoples' concerns. The focus is on the Sakha (Yakut), who are the farthest north of the Turkic language speakers, and the majority indigenous group of their multiethnic republic in the Far East of the Russian Federation. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, they have been coping with the tensions of increased development, mixed-signal federal policies, and valiant attempts at cultural revitalization.

In summer 2007, In summer 2007, Balzer's Sakha colleague, Uliana Vinokurova, sociologist and former deputy in the Sakha Republic's parliament, shared her concern about climate change reaching the Far North region where she grew up. Not only had their villages seen more numerous and serious floods in the past decade, she explained, "the folk wisdom of our elders does not seem to predict our climate the way it used to." People were worrying about the broader encompassing health, ecology and social problems that fluctuations seem to bring, and whether rituals of cultural and ecological renewal could stem the tide. How far do the ripple effects of climate change go? How do indigenous land keepers discuss the dangers and potential remedies of change? Are indigenous Siberians who rely on subsistence the "canaries in the mine" - warning of global warming?

For more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/botkin-
lectures.html#april30
or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

New AFC Podcast Now Available

The American Folklife Center (AFC) launches its regular schedule of free podcasts with the first episode in the series, "Voices from the Days of Slavery: Stories, Songs, and Memories." Download the audio recording and a transcript of the program to your Ipod, other portable media player, or to your computer from the Library of Congress website: http://www.loc.gov/podcasts/slavenarratives/index.html. You may choose to automatically download this and subsequent episodes via a free subscription from the Library's podcast website or through Apple Itunes.

This series features oral history interviews with African Americans who endured the hardships of the slave plantations and presents their first-person accounts of life during and after slavery. The series was produced by Guha Shankar and Jon Gold, AFC, and Lisa Carl, Professor, North Carolina Central University. All podcasts draw from the unique collections in the American Folklife Center Archives, one of the preeminent audio-visual repositories of national and international folklife, history and cultural expressions.

Burns Symposium Webcasts Now Online

The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce that the webcasts for both days of the symposium, Robert Burns at 250: â¨Poetry, Politics & Performance, are now available via our website.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, the American Folklife Center, in collaboration with the Scottish government as part of its Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebration, presented a free public symposium on Burns's life and work, as well as his impact on America and American culture.

The symposium began with a keynote address by Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, and a talk on "America's Bard" by Robert Crawford, professor of literature at the University of St. Andrews. Crawford's address was followed by readings of Burns's poetry and performances of his songs by renowned Scottish scholars and performers Margaret Bennett and Ed Miller, and award-winning Scottish journalist and broadcaster Billy Kay. The second day of the symposium featured speakers from the National Library of Scotland, the University of Glasgow, American University, The Scottish Book Trust, and the Library of Congress, as well as a reading by the Poet Laureate of the United States, Kay Ryan.

To view the webcasts, please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4514

To learn more about the symposium, please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/Burns/program.html

NPR Features New AFC Collection

American Folklife Center staffers, Nancy Groce and Megan Halsband, were interviewed for National Public Radio's "Interfaith Voices", a show that will air on sixty-one stations between March 27 and April 2, 2009. "Interfaith Voices" will air in the Washington, DC, area on Sunday, March 29, at 3:00 p.m. on WAMU-FM, with the AFC segment airing at approximately 3:30 p.m.

Groce and Halsband will be discussing and playing excerpts from a new AFC collection -- The Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Collection. These oral testamonials were sent to the Library of Congress in response to a call for submissions issued by the American Folklife Center in December, 2008.

Almost three hundred churches, mosques, synagogues, and secular organizations from more than forty states submitted sermons and orations that comment upon Barak Obama's historic inauguration as President of the United States. Groce and Halsband discussed the project's relationship to earlier AFC collections, such as the "Man-on-the Street" Interviews Collection, which was generated by Alan Lomax's call for responses to the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. They also discussed plans for processing the collection so that it can be used by scholars and researchers. For more information on this collection, visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/inaugural/.

Living and Building between Tradition and Change: Vernacular Architecture in Northern Sweden

The American Folklife Center presents a lecture in the Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Living and Building between Tradition and Change: Vernacular Architecture in Northern Sweden

Mats Widbom, Cultural Counselor, Embassy of Sweden

March 24, 2009, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm 
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building

Architect and folklorist Mats Widbom will present his research on the traditional building culture of Dalecarlia in Northern Sweden. In particular, he will explore how the parstuga (double house) has been used and rebuilt over time in the parish of Lima. His research demonstrates that traditional culture, as expressed in architecture, is not something permanent; it need not have a particular appearance and derivation from the past. Rather, he contends, tradition is something that is constantly being reinterpreted and re-created in the present, in dynamic oscillation between continuity and change.

Mats Widbom, Cultural Counselor, came to the Embassy of Sweden in September 2006, from the governmental authority Swedish Travelling Exhibitions, where he served as Head of Exhibitions, Acting Director General, and Artistic Director. He holds a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and has also studied at the legendary Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York. He produced and was the project leader for the successful exhibition “Swedish Folk Art – All Tradition is Change,” which toured for over four years throughout the United States and Canada. From 1998 to 2004, he was President of the Swedish National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and a board member of the International Committee for Exhibitions and Exchange (ICEE) 2001-2006.

Robert Burns At 250: Poetry, Politics & Performance-- Registration Now Open

Robert Burns At 250: Poetry, Politics & Performance

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Scotlandâs national poet, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, in collaboration with The Scottish Government, will present a free public symposium on Burnsâs life and work, as well as his impact on America and American culture. The event takes place February 24 and 25, 2009, in the Mumford Room at the Library of Congressâs James Madison Memorial Building.

More than a poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796) has served as an icon and inspiration for generations of artists, politicians, social activists, and cultural reformers throughout the world. The 250th anniversary of his birth provides an ideal opportunity to bring together prominent scholars, poets, and musicians from Scotland and the United States, and other special guests, including the U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, to celebrate Burnsâs career and contributions, as well as his continuing impact on contemporary poetry. The two-day event is produced by the Libraryâs American Folklife Center (AFC), in cooperation with the Libraryâs Center for the Book, the Libraryâs Poetry and Literature Center, and the Scottish government, as part of the Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebrations.

The symposium begins at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25, with a presentation on âBurns, Politics, and Politicians,â and a talk on âAmericaâs Bardâ by Robert Crawford, professor of literature at the University of St. Andrews. Crawford is one of contemporary Scotlandâs leading poets, a noted literary critic, and a widely published scholar. Crawfordâs address will be followed by readings of Burnsâs poetry and performances of his songs by renowned Scottish scholars and performers Margaret Bennett and Ed Miller, and award-winning Scottish journalist and broadcaster Billy Kay.

The symposium reconvenes on Wednesday, February 25 with a panel on Burns and His World. Speakers include Nat Edwards, from the National Library of Scotland, who will give an overview of Burnsâs life and career; noted University of Glasgow professor of Scottish history Ted Cowan, who will compare and contrast â18th Century Scotland and 18th Century Americaâ; and a presentation on âRobert Burns and the Scots Language,â by documentarian Billy Kay, author of the influential history of the Scots language, Scots: The Mither Tongue.

Following lunch, Panel Two explores Robert Burnsâs relationship to the folk and traditional culture of Scotland. Valentina Bold, Head of Scottish Studies at University of Glasgow/Dumfries Campus, speaks on âRobert Burns and Scottish Traditional Song.â The acclaimed singer and scholar Margaret Bennett, assisted by folklorist/performer Ed Miller, follows with a lecture/demonstration on âRobert Burns: A Life in Song.â

âPoetry, Celebrity, and the Publicâ is the topic of next panel. The Poet Laureate of the United States, Kay Ryan, joins celebrated Scottish poet Robert Crawford, and Myra Sklarew, former president of the Yaddo artist community, poet, and professor emerita of literature at American University, to explore the role of poets as âliterary lionsâ in both 18th-century Europe and the contemporary world.

The symposium closes with an overview of Burns materials at the Library of Congress by Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center, and a discussion entitled âTomorrowâs Bards: Promoting Reading and Literacy in Scotland and the United States.â Cate Newton, director of collections development at the National Library of Scotland, Marc Lambert, chief executive of the Scottish Book Trust, and John Y. Cole, founder and director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, will explore how reading, cultural literacy, and creativity are fostered on either side of the Atlantic.

Robert Burns at 250: Poetry, Politics, and Performance is free and open to the public, but space is limited. Advance registration is strongly suggested. For more program information and to register on-line, visit: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/Burns/ For further information, contact: Nancy Groce, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress; Phone: 202-707-1744; Email: ngro@loc.gov.

AFC Lecture-- Weaving and Singing in Northern Ireland

THE AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRESENTS

A LECTURE IN THE BENJAMIN A. BOTKIN FOLKLIFE LECTURE SERIES
AND REDISCOVER NORTHERN IRELAND AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

"I Am a Wee Weaver": Weaving and Singing in Northern Ireland

Presented by Maurice Leyden

December 4, 2008, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm

Pickford Theater, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Handloom weaving was dominated by men in 19th century Ireland. The Industrial Revolution changed that, enabling women to take the dominant role in the factory production of linen. Maurice Leyden will discuss the reasons for this historical shift, and the impact of this change on the traditions of singing and songwriting among weavers. To illustrate his lecture, Leyden will sing songs composed by linen weavers between the 18th and 20th centuries, setting the songs in their historical context and discussing folklore and customs associated with the weavers.

Maurice Leyden has been collecting traditional songs since the early 1980s. He has published two books: Belfast, City of Song and Boys and Girls Come Out to Play, each of which was accompanied by a cassette of songs. He is currently finishing a social history of the linen industry in Ulster, in the north of Ireland, narrated through the songs of the workers; this book will be accompanied by a CD. In addition to his scholarly work and his singing, Leyden is a renowned broadcaster, who produced and presented a radio program of traditional music for over a decade.

For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510. This program is co-sponsored by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

SURATI Classical and Folk Indian Dance from New Jersey

AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRESENTS

THE HOMEGROWN CONCERT SERIES

SURATI Classical and Folk Indian Dance from New Jersey

November 19, 2008 at 12:00 noon, FREE
Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Surati, inc. is a performing arts company and school for Indian music and dance, based in New Jersey. Since 2001, Suratiâs dance and music school has offered intensive training in Indian classical, traditional, folk, contemporary, and popular dance and music. Surati's group of professional dancers and musicians perform a multitude of Indian Classical and traditional folk styles on stage. Rimli Roy, Surati's principal dancer and choreographer, began to take her first formal lessons in Indian classical dancing at the tender age of four. She came from a family of gifted musicians and artists, and was greatly influenced by her parents and brother at an early age. Her father Sumit Roy is a renowned music composer, vocalist and musician based in India. Her mother Arati, is a talented lyricist and visual artist. Her brother Rajesh Roy is also a well-known musician, vocalist, composer and music arranger/programmer. Having a tremendous innate sense of rhythm and natural grace of movement, Rimli gradually began to master several genres of Indian classical dance, and started to give stage performances by the age of six. Rimli and the Surati dance troupe perform a variety of traditional and self-composed Indian dances, including dances in the Manipuri, Bharatnatyam, and Odissi styles. They have performed at cultural events all over the United States and India. For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

AFC Lecture on Song Tradition of Ulster

THE AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRESENTS

A LECTURE IN THE BENJAMIN A. BOTKIN FOLKLIFE LECTURE SERIES
AND REDISCOVER NORTHERN IRELAND AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

It's Of My Rambles... A Journey in the Song Tradition of Ulster
presented by Len Graham

November 6, 2008, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm, FREE
Pickford Theater, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

Traditional singer and song collector Len Graham from County Antrim in Northern Ireland will explore the folk song tradition of his native Ulster. His talk/recital will be interspersed with live performances of songs in English on many themes, including, early classic ballads, broadside ballads, songs of love, politics, emigration and many other topics. Len Graham has been a professional traditional singer since 1982 and He has received many awards for his work as a singer and collector. In 1993 he received the Sean O'Boyle Cultural Traditions Award for his book and field recordings - It's Of My Rambles.... In 2002 he was the first recipient of the Irish television TG4 National Music Award for - 'Traditional Singer of the Year' and in 2008 he received the 'Tommy Makem Keeper of the Tradition' Award. Here I Am Amongst You his book on the songs, music and traditions of Joe Holmes (1906-78) is due for publication by Queen's University, Belfast in late 2008. For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510. This program is co-sponsored by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

A Bard of Nature’s Making: Robert Burns and Scottish Traditional Culture

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents

A Bard of Nature’s Making: Robert Burns and Scottish Traditional Culture 

presented by Valentina Bold, University of Glasgow

October 21, 2008, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm, FREE 
Whittall Pavilion, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building

Valentina Bold will explore the ways in which Burns’s work draws on, and influences, the traditional culture of Scotland. Looking in particular at his engagement with traditional songs and legends—from “A Red Red Rose” to “Tam o Shanter,” Bold also considers the impact of Burns’s image as a self-styled “Bard of Nature’s Making” on later Scottish poets and songwriters. Bold will suggest that the image of the “Heaven-taught ploughman”—in itself drawing on the work of earlier writers like Allan Ramsay and James Macpherson of Ossian fame—played a hugely significant role in validating and facilitating the work of other Scottish “peasant poets.” In conclusion, the lecture will consider Burns’s impacts on other Scottish bards “of Nature’s making” including James Hogg (“the Ettrick Shepherd”) and Allan Cunningham (“the Nithsdale Mason.”) Valentina Bold is Head of Scottish Studies at the University of Glasgow’s Dumfries campus. Robert Burns spent his final years in Dumfries, and Bold is part of the BARD team there (Burns Research in Dumfries). She convenes the taught postgraduate M.Litt programme in Robert Burns Studies, as well as the M.Litt in Scottish Cultural Heritage. She is known for her work on Scottish poetry and song, and she has a particular interest in the Scottish communities of the U.S. and Canada. Bold’s publications include James Hogg: A Bard of Nature’s Making and Smeddum: A Lewis Grassic Gibbon Anthology, as well as the CD-ROM Northern Folk: Living Traditions of North East Scotland. She is currently working on a new edition of Burns’s Merry Muses of Caledonia, to be published in late 2008. For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

TOMMY SANDS with Moya and FionÃ¡n Sands, County Down, Northern Ireland

TOMMY SANDS with Moya and Fionán Sands, County Down, Northern Ireland

October 9, 2008, 12:00 noon, FREE
Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The American Folklife Center and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland are proud to announce a concert with Tommy Sands with Moya and Fionán Sands, County Down, Northern Ireland as the opening event of a series of three exciting events that are celebrating and documenting the culture and musical traditions of Northern Ireland. As a follow-up to a successful season of cooperative events in 2007, Rediscover Northern Ireland 2008 brings three of the most respected artists to the Library of Congress for a series of free, noon-time public events.

An internationally celebrated singer, songwriter, storyteller, and social activist, Tommy Sands was raised with traditional music in County Down, Northern Ireland. As a member of the influential Sands Family folk ensemble, he introduced international audiences to Irish music during the 1960s and laid the groundwork for its current worldwide popularity. Author of such classic songs as "There Were Roses," "Daughters and Sons," and "Come on Home to the County Down," he has seen his works translated into many languages and recorded by such artists as Joan Baez, Kathy Mattea, and Dolores Keane. Over the decades, his artistic integrity, engaging style, and commitment to peace and dialog between peoples of different backgrounds have contributed to his worldwide renown.

For more information on this event or other Northern Ireland programs at the Library, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/events/NorthernIrelandEvents2008.html or call the American Folklife Center at 202-707-5510.

BAR J WRANGLERS-- Cowboy Music from Wyoming

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress presents

BAR J WRANGLERS-- Cowboy Music from Wyoming

October 2, 2008 at 12:00 noon, FREE
Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The Bar J Wranglers from Wilson, Wyoming (outside Jackson Hole) carry on a family tradition of entertaining audiences throughout the Intermountain West with their mixture of cowboy music, humorous skits and celebration of ranch life. Every evening from May through September, they work seven days a week hosting the Bar J Chuckwagon Supper and Western Show, where they work the ticket booth, serve up dinner, then perform their warmly spirited repertoire to hundreds of guests over the season. For the rest of the year, they perform at music gatherings and ranch events, and in concert halls. Singing four-part harmonies, yodeling and playing instruments, their original songs and older pieces revere the ranching way of life and offer up insights into rural values. Following in their father, Babe Humphrey's musical footsteps, sons Scott on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Bryan on vocals and upright bass, are joined by Tim Hodgson on vocals and fiddle, Donnie Cook on flat-top and steel guitars, dobro and banjo, and Jerry "Bullfrog" Baxter on vocals and rhythm guitar, to deliver some of the best harmonies, and some of the most outrageous comedy and remarkable musicianship in the American West. For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

GARY HALEAMAU: Traditional Hawaiian Music from Las Vegas (The Ninth Island)

THE AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS presents

GARY HALEAMAU
Traditional Hawaiian Music from Las Vegas (The Ninth Island)

August 20, 2008 at 12:00 noon, FREE
Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Gary Haleamau grew up at Hu‘ehu‘e Ranch in North Kona on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Family gatherings included music, and Karin Haleamau, a paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) and slack key guitar player, encouraged his son to join in. “If you sat there and watched and listened, then what you absorbed is what you learned and what you would be able to do,” Gary recalled. At the age of three he discovered that he could play the ukulele. By the time he was eight years old, and could accompany himself on the slack-key guitar, he was playing and singing at family and neighborhood get-togethers. Hawaiian aunties and uncles inspired his mastery of leo ki’eki’e, an unmistakably Hawaiian falsetto style of singing, and he released his debut album on Poki Records in 1977 at the age of 12. Gary appeared with his father and Clyde “Kindy” Sproat at the 13th Annual Border Folk Festival in Texas and the 1984 National Folk Festival. Since then he has continued to record and perform, captivating audiences in Hawai’i, the mainland United States and Japan with beautiful vocal stylings and seemingly effortless slack key finesse. Today Gary, his wife Sheldeen and their ohana (family) live in Las Vegas—locally known as “the ninth island” because of the many Hawaiian residents and visitors who have made a new home for the Aloha spirit in the Nevada desert. Sheldeen is a former “Miss Aloha Hula” kumu hula and their Halau Hula O’Kaleimomi helps to ensure that the gentle art of hula will endure and flourish in the 21st century. For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

THE ZIONAIRES-- Gospel Music from Maryland and Delaware

FREE

July 24, 2008 at 12:00 noon 

Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The Zionaires gospel group, who hail from the Delmarva Peninsula, celebrated their 54th singing anniversary on February 17, 2008. For over half a century, they have spread the word of God through music to church and radio audiences on the lower shore of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. They attribute their remarkable survival to the words of King David: "I will sing praises unto God while I have any being" [Psalm 146:2]. In 1954, Dennis Brady, Marion Joynes, Hilton Johnson and Edward Davis, four young men active in Mt. Hope AME Zion Church, formed the quartet. There have been so many lineup changes over the years that there are more than forty former members and musicians who have spent time in the group. Since the lead-up to their golden anniversary, the Zionaires have experienced a surge of interest in their singing, both locally and nationally. In 2003, they headlined the Quarterly Gospel Festival in Wilmington, which is the largest Gospel event in Delaware. They also performed a high-profile concert at the Metropolitan AME Church in New York City, where Dr. Bobby Jones, host of Black Entertainment Television’s flagship Sunday program, Bobby Jones Gospel, introduced them. In 2004, The Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation included the Zionaires on their award-winning CD set From Bridge to Boardwalk: An Audio Journey Across Maryland's Eastern Shore. Also in 2004, they performed in the Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert, part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, an international exposition of living cultural heritage which is produced annually, outdoors, on the National Mall of the United States in Washington, D.C.

For more information please visit the American Folklife Center at www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

OPALANGA PUGH--African American storytelling from Colorado with Askia Toure on voice and drum

FREE

May 28, 2008 at 12 noon

Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Opalanga Pugh is a storyteller in the African American oral tradition. Working for the railroad led both of Opalanga's grandfathers to migrate to the West around the turn of the 20th century, and Opalanga grew up in the small but culturally rich African American community of Denver, Colorado. Under her grandmother's tutelage, Opalanga absorbed cautionary tales and proverbs while she learned the ethic of hard work and "how to make a creative way out of no way." She embraced the civil rights movement during her high school years in the late 1960s, and began the cultural activism she has continued throughout her life. Opalanga answered a deep call to visit Africa, "the mother of us all," and she spent her senior year abroad at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. As she traveled among the Yoruba and other people of West Africa, Opalanga listened closely to the way people shaped language into story and song, and witnessed firsthand how tightly storytelling was woven into the fabric of human life.

Opalanga will tell stories from her African cultural experiences, classic African American tales, and stories from the lives of early blacks in the American west. One story will come from historical Five Points, the cultural center of Black Denver. Askia TourÃÂÃÂ©, another Denver native and a member of Opalanga's extended family, will use his voice and drums to add rhythm and fullness to the stories. Together they will honor Opalanga's commitment to bring "traditional wisdom into the heart of the modern world."

Opalanga has traveled as a professional storyteller throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, working in education, mental health, and corporate settings since 1986. In these contexts, she uses story as a tool for personal development, a vehicle for education, and a force for social change. NBC selected Opalanga as one of 10 African American Living Legends in 1992. Opalanga has received the Ambassador for Peace Award from the Conflict Center of Denver, and twice won the Denver Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

For more information, please visit: www.loc.gov/folklife or call 202-707-5510.

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