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Posted by: Todd Harvey
Staff from the American Folklife Center and By the People have again teamed up for a crowdsourcing campaign. We are asking volunteers to read and transcribe the Center’s World War II Rumor Project. The digital collection is online and the crowdsourcing campaign is now live. The World War II Rumor project was conceived by U.S. …
Posted in: rumors, World War II
Posted by: Stephen Winick
We're continuing the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with Vigüela, a a traditional folk quintet with a commitment to the rural musical traditions of central Spain. As is usual for the series, this blog post includes an embedded concert video, an interview video, and a set of related links to explore! Vigüela was established in the mid-1980s, after the Franco regime, by young people who looked to folk culture for a way to channel their creative desires while staying rooted in their local communities. Grounded in this history, the band members value their tradition and perform it with accuracy and energy, as a living music, full of joy. They play traditional Spanish music, including jotas, seguidillas, fandangos, and sones, using the centuries-old singing styles, dialects, and instruments of their region. That region is Castilla-La Mancha, the southern part of the Iberian plateau, sometimes called “the heart of Spain,” or “Don Quixote country.”
Posted in: AFC Events, Concerts with Archive Challenge Content, Hispanic American History, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus, Homegrown Premieres, Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephen Winick
We're continuing the Homegrown Plus series with Windborne, a vocal quartet from New England. BBC Traveling Folk called them "the most exciting vocal group in a generation," and they have certainly done great things with AFC archival materials. Just like other blogs in the Homegrown Plus series, this one includes a concert video, a video interview with the musicians, and connections to Library of Congress collections.
Posted in: AFC Events, Concerts with Archive Challenge Content, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus, Old Time Music
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This post features a lecture by Camille Moreddu, a cultural historian from France who is studying what she calls the "French Creole Corridor," French-speaking communities, primarily in the Upper Midwest, which retained fascinating French music and song recorded by collectors in the 20th and 21st centuries. In her lecture. Moreddu reviews the repertoire found in these and related collections--from Great Lakes voyageurs’ songs and French-Canadian fiddle tunes to the ballads, winter ritual songs, and local songs of the Creole settlements of the Upper Mississippi River Valley. She also discusses methods and experiences of the different collectors; the histories of colonial era Francophone settlers as well as later immigrants from France, Belgium, and Canada; and how the French cultural presence was integrated into the narrative and historiography of the American frontier. We also conducted a brief question and answer session with Moreddu, and appended it to the lecture video itself. Moreddu kindly did her lecture twice--once in English and once in French--to make it as accessible as possible to people with an interest in these collections, and we did the Q & A in both languages too!
Posted in: Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series, Botkin Folklife Lectures Plus, French American History
Posted by: Stephen Winick
We're continuing the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, a quartet that plays rural music of Polish villages on fiddles, flutes, accordions, and other traditional instruments. As is usual for the series, this blog post includes an embedded concert video, an interview video, and a set of related links to explore!
Posted in: AFC Events, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus, Homegrown Premieres
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In this post we examine some of the earliest evidence of the Cornish May Song, also known as "Hal An Tow." A version of this song was recorded from Lillian Short in Missouri by Vance Randolph in 1941. By that time, the melody to the song had changed in oral tradition, but this early evidence, a written transcription by Edward Jones from 1802, shows that the song was formerly sung to the same melody retained by Lillian Short. The post includes Jones's 1802 passage describing the May 8 observances in Helston, Cornwall, which include the "Hal An Tow" song, the "Furry Dance" or "Flora Dance," and other events; the sheet music as he published it; and a discussion of Jones's interpretations of the Helston song in relation to AFC's field recording.
Posted in: Celtic Music, Folksong, Hal An Tow, Holidays, May Day
Posted by: Stephen Winick
We're continuing the Homegrown Plus series with Vrï, a trio from Wales in the U.K., whose members describe their music as 'chamber-folk.' The idea of the series is to gather concert videos, video interviews with the musicians, and connections to Library of Congress collections together in one place for our subscribers...so here we go! Bringing together the experience of Jordan Price Williams (cello, voice) Patrick Rimes (violin, viola, foot percussion, voice) and Aneirin Jones (violin, voice) Vrï plays tunes and songs from the Celtic nations and beyond, attempting to combine the energy of a rowdy pub session with the style and finesse of the Viennese string quartet. They combine high-energy dance music and stately traditional melodies with delicate arrangements, and sing in both Welsh and English.
Posted in: AFC Events, Celtic Music, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Welcome back to the Homegrown Plus series, in which we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both videos together in an easy-to-find blog post. We're continuing the series with one of Finland's favorite folk bands, Kardemimmit. The American Folklife Center was very happy to co-sponsor this concert with our friends at the Embassy of Finland. Kardemimmit is a quartet consisting of Maija Pokela, Jutta Rahmel, Anna Wegelius, and Leeni Wegelius, four women who sing and play kantele. The kantele is a zither or plucked psaltery, and is the national instrument of Finland. Kardemimmit is considered a pioneering kantele band. The singing and playing in their excellent concert video have a strong foundation in Finnish, Eastern European, and Scandinavian traditions. In our conversation, I spoke with Anna and Leeni Wegelius about Finnish traditional music, the education system in Finland and its support of music, the importance of the kantele, the history of Kardemimmit, and their surprising connection to...The Spice Girls. Enjoy the concert and the interview, plus links to some further Finnish resources you can explore, all in this blog post, published on the anniversary of the concert premiere!
Posted in: AFC Events, Finnish Americans, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Welcome to the Homegrown Plus series, in which we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both videos together in an easy-to-find blog post. We're continuing the series with Ranina Quartet, a music ensemble from the Republic of Georgia. The Ranina Quartet was created out of a love for Georgian traditional music, including urban songs, folk songs, and chants. The current members include Tornike Kandelaki (first voice), Soso Kopaleishvili (second voice), Saba Peikrishvili (baritone), and Beka Kemularia (bass). They have been singing since they were little children, and individual members have performed in many ensembles. The quartet's repertoire includes classic pieces from various genres including Georgian traditional folk songs, liturgical chants, and popular songs. We follow the concert video with two interviews, one with Ranina member Soso Kopaleishvili and the other with ethnomusicologist John A. Graham.
Posted in: AFC Events, Georgia [Country], Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus