AFC is happy to introduce Amanda Pascali, the 2025 Artist in Resonance. Pascali is an internationally acclaimed, bilingual singer/songwriter who blends folk/Americana influences with Mediterranean, Balkan, and Latin rhythms. Born in New York City and raised in Texas, she has performed internationally, and was named the 2021 Houston Chronicle "Musician of the Year." Earlier this year, she performed in our very own Archive Challenge Showcase at Folk Alliance International. Pascali is also a Fulbright Fellow who pioneered the first comprehensive project to translate and revitalize folk songs written in Sicilian— a UNESCO endangered language. She has amassed a viral following online, and has presented her work at conferences and universities in the US and abroad. For her Artists in Resonance project, she plans to draw on several AFC collections in Italian, Sicilian, and English, emphasizing the connections between American folk music and Italian traditional songs, as well as between historical struggles and contemporary issues. In this blog, we’ll introduce this unique artist and her project, embed her Archive Challenge video, and link you to more of her music.
The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 fellowships and awards. Archie Green Fellowships went to: Joel Chapman of Baltimore, Maryland, for “Cycling Lore: The Occupational Folklore of Bicycle Workers in America;” Georgia Ellie Dassler of Richmond, Virginia, for “Vets on the Trail: The Occupational Culture of American Sled Dog Veterinarians;” Amy Grossmann of the North Carolina Folklife Institute for “Professional Firefighters in Greensboro, North Carolina;” and Austin Richey of Hamtramck, Michigan, for “Backstage Detroit: Labor and Artistry at the Detroit Opera.” Their documentation will become part of AFC’s online Occupational Folklife Project. Gerald E. And Corinne L. Parsons Fund Awards went to: Lora Bottinelli of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to conduct onsite research with Library collections related to waterfowling; and Olivia Phillips of Bloomington, Indiana, to research the influences of African American musicians and musical styles on the influential North Carolina musician Frank Proffitt. Blanton Owen Fund Awards went to: Allison Cate of Nashville, Tennessee, for oral history interviews with founders and key organizers of the East Nashville Tomato Art Festival; and Justin Hunter of Fayetteville, Arkansas, for “She Heard Arkansas: An Ethnographic Biography of Mary Parler.” The Artists in Resonance Fellowship went to Amanda Pascali for a project focused on immigrant collections, including Italian and Sicilian-language folksong collections, at AFC. In the blog you’ll find more information on the awardees and their projects.
This post premieres the film, El Motor: Coffee and the Heart of Puerto Rico, by filmmaker Russell Oliver who received a 2022 Community Collections Grant from the American Folklife Center, as part of the Library of Congress Of the People: Widening the Path initiative. The film captures the challenges of farming alongside moments of triumph, revealing how Puerto Rico’s coffee farmers preserve tradition while adapting for the future. This year's American Folklife Center's Homegrown Foodways Film Series celebrates Community Collections Grant recipients.
This post premieres the film, Bayous, Buddha, and Padaek: Southern Louisiana's Lao Foodways, by filmmakers Phanat Xanamane, Sami "Sai" Haggood, and Ba Bader who received a 2022 Community Collections Grant from the Center. The film is a captivating two-part documentary that delves into the rich culinary traditions of the Lao Buddhist immigrant community in Louisiana. This year's American Folklife Center's Homegrown Foodways Film Series celebrates Community Collections Grant recipients.
In this post, Nicole Saylor, Director of the American Folklife Center (AFC), highlights the 2024 accomplishments of the AFC. The post demonstrates how 2024 was a busy and productive year for the American Folklife Center, as it continued to meet its mission to document and share the many expressions of human experience to inspire, revitalize, and perpetuate living cultural traditions.
Allow us to introduce Ozarks musicians Mark Bilyeu and Cindy Woolf (The Creek Rocks). The duo are our very first Artists in Resonance, and are here for a week of in-depth research. Mark and Cindy, who live in Springfield, Missouri, were chosen from among 22 applicants to the Center’s Artists in Resonance Fellowship. The fellowship is intended to support artists in creating new musical works inspired by and sourced from collection materials in the Center’s archives. During their fellowship, Cindy and Mark are focusing on the materials Sidney Robertson Cowell recorded in Missouri in 1936 and 1937 for the Resettlement Administration. According to the duo, the items in the collection from Springfield, despite probably being the earliest audio documents of folk music in and around that city, "seem to be virtually unknown to our local historical memory, save for but a very few figures immersed in the study of the Ozarks and its folklore." Their goal is to produce a full-length album of songs from the collection in new arrangements by The Creek Rocks. In this post you can read more about The Creek Rocks, find links to their work and to the other archival collections they’ve visited, and find out how to apply for future fellowships.
Folklife Specialist Nancy Groce announces a new American Folklife Center archival collection, the Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands: Backstrap Weaving in Micronesia, as supported through the Center's Community Collections Grant program.
This post is an excerpt of an interview with 2024 American Folklife Center Community Collections Grant recipient Dr. Ashley Minner Jones on her project, Beyond Baltimore Street: Living Lumbee Legacies, as part of the Library of Congress Of the People: Widening the Path initiative.
The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the 2024 recipients of its competitive annual fellowships and awards programs: the Archie Green Fellowship and the Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award. This year, these awards went to six projects throughout the United States, whose proposals were reviewed and selected by internal and external panels at the American Folklife Center. Laurena Davis of Clifton, Colorado, received an Archie Green Fellowship for “Taking Stock: Ranching Women of Western Colorado.” Dr. Sarah Beth Nelson of Whitewater, Wisconsin, received Archie Green support for “Community Builders: Library Workers in Wisconsin.” Documentary filmmaker Sophie Dia Pegrum of Woodland Hills, California, received an Archie Green Fellowship for her project “Guardians of the Bees,” featuring interviews with beekeepers. Folklorist Kathryn Noval of Silver Spring, Maryland, received Archie Green funding for her research project “Professional Body Piercers in the 21st Century: Rooted in Passion.” Dr. Sophie Abramowitz, (Brooklyn, New York) received a Parsons Award to support onsite research in AFC collections for the expanded LP reissue of "Jailhouse Blues: Women’s a cappella songs from the Parchman Penitentiary, Library of Congress Field Recordings, 1936 and 1939." Finally, L. Renée, (Virgina), a poet and writer, received a Parsons Award to support her research on Black communities in coal mining and tobacco farming towns of Southwest Virginia and West Virginia.
