Here at the American Folklife Center, we’re busy working on the 2022 Homegrown at Home Concert Series. The series kicked off on April 20 with a great concert by Kongero, a Swedish vocal group made up of four women who adorn traditional Swedish songs with harmonies and arrangements created by the band members. Kongero’s polyphonic music is characterized by tight harmonies, stirring rhythms, and the clarity of their beautiful voices. I was also privileged to interview the singers, and the interview video is embedded with the concert.
Just like last year, these concert videos, recorded at home by the artists, will be presented online every other Wednesday starting at noon (Eastern U.S. Time Zone). But we’ve adjusted the format: rather than streaming them on Facebook, we are presenting them as “Homegrown Plus Premiere” blog posts here on the Folklife Today blog. We’ll simultaneously make them live on their own pages at the Library of Congress website, which you can find through the Folklife Concerts page at this link, and over at the Library of Congress YouTube channel, at this link. Finally, we’ll deploy a post over on our Facebook page, with a link to the concert. All of this will be done at noon on concert day by AFC staff and our great colleagues in other divisions of the Library of Congress.
If you’re a blog subscriber, you’ll get an email when each concert premieres. If you’re not a subscriber, why not subscribe now, by adding your email address at this link?
If you missed the first concert, don’t worry! Our premieres stay up in perpetuity, so you can still watch the concert and interview. If you want to catch up on the season at any time, the full list of our recent concerts which premiered on the blog is here.
The next concert in the series will be on May 4: Herb Ohta, Jr.: `Ukulele Virtuoso from Hawai’i.
We’re still booking the 2022 series, so not all the concerts can be announced–but a list of most of them is below. You can always find an up-to-date listing of everything we can announce at the Folklife Concerts page at this link.
Below find the list of concerts, with links to artist bios where available.
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- April 20 — Kongero: Swedish Folk’appella
- May 4 — Herb Ohta, Jr.: `Ukulele Virtuoso from Hawai’i
- May 18 — Julian Kytasty: Ukrainian American Bandura Master from New York
- June 1 — Pamyua: Yup’ik Drumsongs from Alaska
- June 22 — Chao Tian and Tom Teasley: Chinese Dulcimer and Percussion from Maryland
- July 6 — Rodopi Ensemble: Traditional Music of Thrace
- July 20 — TBD
- August 3 — Janusz Prusinowski Kompania: Progressive Village Music from Poland
- August 17 — WÖR: Folk and Early Music from Belgium
- August 31 — TBD
- September 14 — Vigüela: Traditional Song and Music from Central Spain
- September 28 — TBD
Remember: you can always find the up-to-date list at the Library of Congress Folklife Concerts Page, which you can find at this link.
We’re excited about this year’s lineup, and we hope you’ll tune to all these great concerts throughout the season!