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Category: ethnomusicologists

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Alan Lomax in Italy: a letter to Goffredo Plastino

Posted by: Stephen Winick

At the American Folklife Center, researchers come from around the world to study our unparalleled documentation of traditional culture. But sometimes, they don’t even have to come here. Occasionally, new discoveries by our staff are so exciting or so curious that we feel prominent researchers need to know. For this reason, our reference librarians keep …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Honoring Vernacular Sounds: AFC Recordings on the National Recording Registry

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Last week, the Library announced this year’s inductees to the National Recording Registry.  There, along with classics by The Doors, Radiohead, Steve Martin, and Joan Baez, was a fascinating AFC collection: The Benjamin Ives Gilman Collection Recorded at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago. This collection of 101 wax cylinder recordings was created by …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Moving Day and a Major Anniversary

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by American Folklife Center’s Judith Gray, an ethnomusicologist who curates the largest body of early recordings of indigenous American songs and stories recorded in the United States. After all the identifying, rehousing, cataloging, labeling, barcoding, and databasing activity on the part of AFC staff over the past year, the actual …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Preparing thousands of the earliest ethnographic recordings on wax cylinders for transfer to the National Audio-visual Conservation Center

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

Judith Gray, a specialist in Native American cultures, has been spending a lot of quality time down in the chilly decks of the Library’s Jefferson building lately. She curates the largest body of early recordings of indigenous American music and stories in the United States contained on nearly ten thousand wax cylinders. When not on …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Carlos Núñez Concert Honors Alan Lomax’s Spanish Fieldwork

Posted by: Stephen Winick

As I have mentioned several times on this blog, the 100th birthday of Alan Lomax is fast approaching.  We’ll be celebrating the birthday itself with an exhibit, and then extending our celebrations throughout the year.  However, today I thought it might be fun to show you that we’ve already gotten a jump on our celebrations …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Judith McCulloh 1935-2014

Posted by: Stephen Winick

On behalf of all my colleagues at the American Folklife Center, I’m very sad to say that Judith McCulloh, a pivotal figure in the fields of folklore and ethnomusicology, and a crucial friend of AFC and its staff, passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, July 13. Judy was a truly remarkable folklorist …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

It’s Never too Late to be an Ethnomusicologist: A Conversation with AFC Intern Kirk Sullivan, Part II

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by Folklife Specialist Ann Hoog, who coordinates AFC’s internship program. This is the second in a two-part series stemming from a conversation with one of our summer interns, Kirk Sullivan. Part I was about how he went from having an established career in software engineering to becoming a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology. Today, …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

It’s Never too Late to be an Ethnomusicologist: A Conversation with AFC Intern Kirk Sullivan

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by Folklife Specialist Ann Hoog, who coordinates AFC’s internship program. This is the first in a two-part series stemming from a conversation with one of our summer interns, Kirk Sullivan. Part II is available at this link. This week I sat down to talk with one of our summer interns, Kirk Sullivan, …