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AUTHOR: Douglas D. Peach

Douglas D. Peach is a Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. As an ethnomusicologist and public folklorist, Peach has over twelve years of experience in leading programs and supporting institutions working at the intersection of music, cultural heritage, and the traditional arts. At the American Folklife Center (AFC), Peach supports the AFC’s directive to present and preserve folklife by leading documentation projects, creating public events, and conducting research for public audiences. Peach is the program manager for the COVID-19 American History Project—an initiative to document and archive Americans’ experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the AFC, Peach served as Folklife Specialist and Director of Community Engagement at Sandy Spring Museum, where he led the Regional Folklife Center (RFC) for Montgomery County, Maryland, from 2020-2023. Peach led the creation of a strategic plan for the RFC, conceptualized initiatives to support artists’ recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, fundraised over $500,000 from national and regional funding organizations, produced over 50 public programs, and established an advisory committee for the RFC. He also assisted traditional artists with grant applications, leading to over $100,000 in direct support to Montgomery County’s traditional artists. From 2014-2015, Peach was the Folklife and Traditional Arts Program Director at McKissick Museum (University of South Carolina) and the South Carolina Arts Commission. In this role, Peach administered three grant programs and produced festivals, concerts, and other public events to celebrate traditional artists, and their communities, in South Carolina. Peach’s research focuses on the politics of musical performance, the formation of racial identities, and critical issues surrounding transnationalism and cultural heritage. Since 2012, Peach has conducted collaborative research with Gullah Geechee community members in coastal South Carolina. Peach’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the West African Research Association, and Indiana University. He is the co-author of Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line (with Henry Glassie and Cliff Murphy). The two-CD/book was published by Dust-to-Digital in 2015 and received a Certificate of Merit for “Best Historical Research in Recorded Folk or World Music” from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections in 2016. Peach holds a PhD from the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology (with a minor in African American and African Diaspora Studies) at Indiana University. He also earned a BA in Music Industry Studies and a minor in Jazz Studies from Appalachian State University.

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