This guest post is by Sarah Elizabeth Tomlinson, a Ph.D. candidate in Musicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At their school’s annual Christmas performance, forty kindergarten and first-grade students in Durham, North Carolina bounced and sang along with the Library of Congress. Specifically, they performed for an audience of family and …
As the summer winds down, staff at the AFC are saying goodbyes to our inaugural Bartis Folklife interns: Trelani Duncan and Mackenzie Kwok. They’ve been with us since June, working primarily on the scriptwriting team for a podcast series that AFC will launch later this year, but also applying individual skills and interests to a …
Peter Winne is an independent radio producer based in Connecticut. Earlier this year he released an audio documentary on PRX that explores the fascinating history of a well-known American gospel song called, “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.” Peter’s research for the program drew him into the orbit of the American Folklife Center at the …
This is a guest post by Marcia Segal, a Processing Archivist at the American Folklife Center. Legendary blues singer Mississippi John Hurt’s song “Avalon Blues” appears on numerous recordings in the Tom Hoskins collection: “…Avalon, my hometown, always on my mind…” Hurt first recorded the song in 1928. In 1963, musician and blues music fan …
A little over a decade ago, Brooklyn-based musician and promoter, Eli Smith, merged his passion for folk music with the inspiration he got from the community of artists calling New York City home and created the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Along the ten-year journey of the Festival, Eli has engaged the American Folklife Center in numerous …
This is a guest post by recent AFC intern, Riley Calcagno, who spent the month of January 2018 working on recordings by Robert Winslow Gordon that date back to the mid-1920s. In the fall of 1925, Robert Winslow Gordon set up a tent in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina. Determined to document the music …
This is a guest post by Josie Morgan, an undergraduate student at UCLA who interned at the American Folklife Center from September to December 2017. Flying from sunny Southern California to bustling Washington D.C. for the first time this past September, I began my experience at the Library of Congress with a welcome tour, a …
Back in December 2017, a colleague of ours here at the Library published a short piece in the Music Educator’s Journal highlighting the many video recordings of musical performances at the Library of Congress hosted on the Library’s YouTube channel. Focusing on videos documenting the American Folklife Center’s Homegrown concert series, Lee Ann Potter (Director, …
For many years, interns have assisted American Folklife Center staff in a range of tasks and projects central to supporting our mission. While rewarding in experience and skill-building, these have always been volunteer opportunities. We are excited to announce that we now offer paid internships as well! In summer 2018, the AFC at the Library …
