The American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress is excited to announce that we’re bringing our Archive Challenge model to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, both on the mall and streaming live on YouTube! Our good friends and colleagues across the National Mall have cooked up a great festival on the theme of “Youth and the Future of Culture.” As part of the festivities, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has engaged 8 groups of young musicians to learn pieces from the Archive of Folk Culture and play them on the festival’s main stage. On July 2, 4, 5, and 7, you’ll find some great young artists performing materials from the Archive, and American Folklife Center staff members will be on hand to facilitate.
We think the Festival theme is important and timely. As our colleagues express it:
“About fifty-two percent of the world’s population is under thirty, the highest in recorded history. Young people around the globe are working across generations and communities to understand and shape the world they will inherit. At the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Youth and the Future of Culture highlights their stories, creativity, and aspirations.
From media production to traditional building trades, from Indigenous language reclamation to lowrider-car innovations, and more, Festival participants will express who they are in the present with an eye toward a vibrant, sustainable future.”
As you may know, for about a decade the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has encouraged singers, musicians, and other artists to explore our archive get creative with what they find through Archive Challenge events. In an Archive Challenge, artists find a song or piece of music they love, put their own stamp on it through arrangement or interpretation, learn it, and perform it. In many cases, we shoot videos and place them on the Library of Congress website. You can find a slew of Archive Challenge videos online there. A few years ago, we also put together an online guide to the Archive Challenge.
The Archive Challenge is appropriate for all ages, but presents especially rich opportunities for getting youth involved in traditional culture, so we’re glad to have this opportunity. This year’s Youth Archive Challenge sets will feature Irish American tunes, Hungarian folk dance, Anglo American traditional ballads, American old-time music, Persian classical music, multiethnic street songs, Bulgarian folk music, and Caribbean steelpan—with a special appearance by frequent Festival and Homegrown artist Christylez Bacon. Each Archive Challenge session will be livestreamed on YouTube, and the streams are linked to the times on our schedule below and on the Festival’s main schedule. (If you follow our links, just look for the YouTube link on the landing page!)
The details are below, along with biographies of the artists–we hope to see you there!
Library of Congress Youth Archive Challenge
at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Archive Challenge Schedule
Wednesday, July 2 [Livestream Link 1-1:50 p.m.]
1 p.m., Main Stage.Irish Traditional Music and Dance.
Keira Noonan (fiddle, bodhrán), Claire Noonan (accordions, dance), and Ryan Callahan (piano, accordion). Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center. []
1:25 p.m., Main Stage. Hip-Hop and Human Beatbox.
Christylez Bacon and Friends. Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center.
3 p.m., Olivia Cadaval Story Circle. Young Artists and Music Legacies with the Library of Congress Archive Challenge.
Christylez Bacon, Keira Noonan, Claire Noonan, and Ryan Callahan talk with moderator Stephen Winick, a Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center, about their traditions.
Friday, July 4 [Livestream Link 1-1:50 p.m.]
1 p.m., Main Stage. Persian Classical Music.
Alexander Sabet (tar), Cyrus Sabet (santoor), and Kazem Davoudian (tombak, daf). Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center.
1:25 p.m., Main Stage. Traditional Appalachian Ballads.
Elsa Howell (singer) and Isak Howell (banjo). Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center.
Saturday, July 5 [Livestream Link 1-1:50 p.m.]
11 a.m., Olivia Cadaval Story Circle. Youth Voices in Music workshop.
Sterling Hollifield and Karlie Keepfer will be participating in this workshop with other young musicians, moderated by Kristy Li Puma.
1 p.m., Main Stage. Old-Time Stringband Music. Sterling Hollifield (fiddle) and Karlie Keepfer (banjo). Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center.
1:25 p.m., Main Stage. Caribbean Steelpan Music. The Cultural Academy for Excellence’s Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra. Presenter: Doug Peach, Folklife Specialist, American Folklife Center.
4 p.m. Beatworks Stage. Workshop with the Cultural Academy for Excellence’s Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra.
Doug Peach, a Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center, will moderate a discussion with representatives of the Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra.
Monday, July 7
3 p.m., Main Stage. Hungarian Folk Dance. Leó Demeter Qualls and Anna (Panni) De Cheke. Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center.
3:25 p.m., Main Stage. Bulgarian Folk Music. Balkan Soul Band (Yana Kirilova, Stanley Kirilov, and Kalin Kirilov). Presenters: Jennifer Cutting and Stephen Winick, Folklife Specialists, American Folklife Center.
Artist Biographies
Keira Noonan, Claire Noonan, and Ryan Callahan are three promising young artists in the vibrant tradition of Irish music & dance in America. Keira, a champion fiddle & bodhran player, imbues traditional music with energy and emotion, inspired by her teachers, Solas founding member Winifred Horan and acclaimed fiddler and composer Brendan Callahan. Her drumming style is informed by her extensive dance experience and her studies with Cara Wildman. Claire, a World Championship qualifying Irish dancer and All-Ireland medal-winning melodeon player, is inspired by the musical lineage of button accordion greats, through the tutelage of her teacher, Sean McComiskey. Claire’s unique prowess across the music and dance disciplines infuses her music with a captivating, driving rhythm and she performs regularly with the Teelin Irish Dance Company, alongside mentor Maureen Berry and sister Keira. Ryan is one of the foremost young pianists in Irish music. Combining the deft touch of his teacher and renowned virtuoso, Donna Long, with the influence of leading lights like Colman Connolly, and Brendan Dolan, Ryan’s music combines adept melodic expression with explorative harmonic ideas. A champion soloist and accompanist, Ryan has performed at the hallowed Philadelphia Folk Festival, and other venues throughout the Mid-Atlantic US. Keira, Claire, and Ryan are all active members of Baltimore Irish Music School, and will represent the United States in the All-Ireland Championships this summer. In the Archive Challenge, they are learning tunes played by the band The Irish Tradition, featuring Sean McComiskey’s father Billy, at the reception celebrating the founding of the American Folklife Center in 1976.
Christylez Bacon is a Progressive Hip-Hop artist and multi-instrumentalist from Southeast, Washington, D.C. As a performer, Christylez plays several instruments including the acoustic guitar and the West African djembe drum, but he’s best known for his excellence at human beat-box (oral percussion). He’s also a fine freestyle rhymer and continues the oral tradition of storytelling through his lyrics. Christylez considers his mission to be cultural acceptance and unification through music. He has transcended many boundaries, including performing at the National Cathedral and being the first Hip-Hop artist to be featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2010 for “Banjo to Beatbox,” a children’s album with Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, covering many different musical genres. Bacon was born and grew up in Washington, DC and attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in the city. He has been featured on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, and has been interviewed several times by the Washington Post. He has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as at the Library of Congress (in the American Folklife Center’s Homegrown Concert Series), and has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra. Christylez founded the Washington Sound Museum, a regular concert series at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington’s H Street NE. In the Archive Challenge, Christylez has selected street cries collected in New York City by Herbert Halpert in 1938 and 1939.
Alexander Sabet and Cyrus Sabet are brothers who have been playing classical Persian music since early childhood, led by their teacher and mentor Ostad Kazem Davoudian, a composer and master of Persian classical music. Cyrus was four years old and Alexander was six years old when they began to play the santoor and tar, respectively. Each of the brothers has also completed a formal apprenticeship with Ostad Davoudian under the auspices of the Virginia Folklife Program at Virginia Humanities. Together with Ostad Davoudian, Cyrus and Alexander are devoted to the ancient musical traditions of their heritage, striving to keep the tradition safe while carrying it to the future. The trio have played for Persian community organizations, as well as leading regional venues such as Strathmore Mansion.
Elsa Howell took an early interest in old Appalachian ballads, a tradition rich with wild stories and haunting melodies. Her voice and attention to musical detail have won her ribbons at folk song competitions in the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina, and her native Virginia. She spent more than a year learning the style from ballad master Elizabeth LaPrelle through the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program, and has been featured at the Richmond Folk Festival, Roanoke’s Taubman Museum of Art, the Floyd Country Store, on the Inside Appalachia podcast/radio show. She was a resident artist at the 2024 MidMountain Festival, which was devoted to examining and reinventing murder ballads. She has also carved her own path as an acoustic guitarist and songwriter, writing personal songs that meld with her more traditional material. She recorded and released Eyes Wide, her EP of mostly original material, in 2024. She will perform material from her home region of southwest Virginia, a cappella and with banjo and shruti box accompaniment from her father, Isak. She learned the songs, including material by Texas Gladden, from the AFC archive at the Library of Congress.
Sterling Knight Hollifield is from Independence, Virginia, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At 11 years old, he is the third out of four brothers and he loves to play the fiddle and the banjo. Sterling began playing fiddle when he was seven years old with Scott Freeman and recently began playing banjo this year. When he is not playing music, you can find him playing outside with his brothers and friends, and learning to box. He loves his dog Rio and he enjoys playing at fiddlers conventions. He met banjo player and singer Karlie Keepfer when she led a music jam at his after-school program, and he will perform with her at the Festival.
Karlie Keepfer hails from Alleghany County, North Carolina. She sings and plays clawhammer-style banjo with her band, Karlie Keepfer and Smokey Holler. The group performs a rich repertoire of old-time, bluegrass, classic country, and gospel music. One of Karlie’s favorite pastimes is attending fiddlers’ conventions in northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia. While she enjoys the competitive aspect of these events, what she values most is the camaraderie of fellow musicians and friends she has met along the way. Karlie is 20 years old and is currently studying civil engineering at North Carolina State University. For the Archive Challenge, Stirling and Karlie selected tunes collected from Henry Reed by Alan Jabbour in 1967 and 1969.
Cultural Academy for Excellence (CAFE) Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra students are taught music theory, practical techniques, and performance skills on the steelpan, an instrument developed in the 20th century in Trinidad and Tobago. The repertoire spans every genre of Western music, including classical, jazz, R&B, pop, rock and roll, samba, calypso, salsa, reggae, and gospel. CAFE’s youth steel bands, organized by age and experience, perform continually throughout the year for local events and venues, including festivals, schools, concerts, church services, and more. They have performed both at home and abroad, and were the first steel band to perform at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The youth ensembles in this program are directed by Khandeya Sheppard, Domenic Lewis, and Candice Thomas. For the Archive Challenge, they selected calypso performances recorded by Alan Lomax, one recorded in New York in 1946, and the other recorded in Trinidad in 1962.
Leó Demeter Qualls has been studying and performing Hungarian folk dance since the age of 6. He has attended various programs and studied with professionals both in North America and Hungary. He is currently being mentored and taught by János Szűcs who is a Örökös Aranysarkantyús dancer, choreographer and educator. After a few years in the Tisza Ensemble, he currently dances in New Jersey’s Csűrdöngölő Ensemble. Leo’s mother Anna (Panni) De Cheke is originally from Budapest, where she learned violin and folk dancing. Years after moving to the United States with her parents as a teenager, she reconnected with her Hungarian roots and began dancing in the Tisza Ensemble and later in the Csűrdöngölő Ensemble, bringing Léo into the world of folk dancing. She also leads the Hungarian youth folk dance ensemble in the DMV. For the Archive Challange, they learned dances from a 1995 video of a performance by Méta and the Tisza Dance Ensemble in the American Folklife Center’s Neptune Plaza Concert Series at the Library of Congress.
Balkan Soul Band is a Maryland-based trio performing traditional Balkan music. The band is also a family, composed of Kalin Kirilov (tambura and accordion) and his two children, Stanley Kirilov (doumbek, tupan, and drum set) and Yana Kirilova (vocals and doumbek). Kalin is an ethnomusicologist and music professor at Towson University, a leading expert on Bulgarian harmony, and a former member of the groundbreaking Ivo Papasov band. Yana and Stanley have studied with leading musicians Polly Tapia Ferber, Genadii Rashkov, and Tsonka Dimitrova. Balkan Soul Band has been performing since 2018 for Bulgarian Cultural Centers in the Mid Atlantic region, performing mostly traditional Bulgarian songs and dance tunes with some Romanian, Serbian, Albanian, and Macedonian music. For the Archive Challenge, they learned music from the Library of Congress’s Martin Koenig Collection, recorded by Koenig in 1969, 1977, and 1979.
Thanks!
We’re excited to be participating in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and hope you will come down to the National Mall, not only for our Archive Challenges, but for a week of youth traditional culture and some great music! (Or you can stream the Archive Challenges from the comforts of your home!) Visit the Festival website for more information about the theme and particpants, and find the full schedule here.