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Category: Homegrown Plus

Four people holding musical instruments.

Skye Consort and Emma Björling: Homegrown Plus

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The latest post in the Homegrown Plus series features the Skye Consort and Emma Björling, an eclectic group performing British, Irish, Canadian, and Scandinavian music and songs in a variety of traditional and modern styles. Just like other blogs in the series, this one includes a concert video, a video interview with the musicians, and connections to Library of Congress collections.

Three people sing into a single microphone

Windborne’s Old Songs and Bold Harmonies: Homegrown Plus

Posted by: Stephen Winick

This post in the Homegrown Plus series features the Windborne Trio, a vocal group from New England. Windborne is usually a quartet, but Jeremy Carter Gordon was prevented from performing at this show. Luckily, before Jeremy joined the group, Windborne toured as a trio, so they had the repertoire, arrangements, and experience to put together a stunning show without him. Consequently, for this concert Windborne was Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, and Lauren Breunig. In their concert they performed a mix of old and new favorites, including American, English, Georgian, Corsican, and Basque songs. 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.

Thai traditional musicians posing on-stage.

Homegrown Plus: Somapa Thai Dance Company and Orchestra Concert and Interview

Posted by: Douglas D. Peach

In this post, the American Folklife Center (AFC) highlights a May 2024 concert performance and oral history interview with the Somapa Thai Dance Company and Orchestra--an ensemble performing traditional music from Thailand, whose members now predominately live in the Washington, DC metropolitan region. The AFC organized Somapa's performance in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and as part of the 2024 Homegrown Concert Series.

Three people around a microphone. One plays upright bass, one fiddle, one guitar.

Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light Concert and Interview

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light, a trio from the Boston area playing bluegrass and old time music, are the latest entry in our Homegrown Plus series, in which we include a concert video, an interview video, and a set of links to explore. You'll find it all in this post...along with a bonus song video! Singer, multi-instrumentalist, and Lennon Award-winning songwriter Rachel Sumner is a fixture of the Boston roots and Americana scene. She fronts the trio Traveling Light on vocals, guitar and banjo, with Kat Wallace on fiddle and Mike Siegel on upright bass. Together they specialize in applying their deeply rooted bluegrass know-how to new interpretations of traditional folk songs and tightly crafted original songs written by Sumner. The band has previously participated in our Archive Challenge at Folk Alliance International and contributed a song to our special Labor Day presentation in 2003. In this concert they made a special effort to play some songs that are part of the American Folklife Center archive, making this another entry in the Archive Challenge as well.

A woman sings into a microphone

Natalie Merchant’s Concert Event Part 2: Archive Treasures Family Sing-Along

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Watch Natalie Merchant’s June 15 sing-along concert at the Library of Congress right here on the blog! The singer, songwriter, activist, and folklife advocate helped the Library mark the opening of the new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery with a very special Family Day sing-along presentation. Around the sing-along and her evening concert, she spent a week in residence at the Library doing research, meeting with staff, and participating in the gallery opening and June Family Day activities. Natalie Merchant, who has remained one of America's most literate and literary pop stars since her days with the band 10,000 Maniacs in the 1980s and 1990s, is also an enthusiast and advocate of traditional folk music and a member of the American Folklife Center's Board of Trustees. In this important leadership and advisory role, she spends time imagining new ways to help the Center further its mission--including this sing-along. Alongside a few of her own compositions, the sing-along featured mostly traditional folksongs which have connections to our unparalleled archival collections. In this blog, you can watch the sing-along itself and then explore these archival connections, including source recordings, photographs, links, and the stories behind the songs.

A woman sings into a microphone with her hand up.

Watch as Natalie Merchant Sings the Treasures of a Nation–Including AFC Archival Treasures

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Watch Natalie Merchant’s June 13 concert at the Library of Congress right here on the blog! The singer, songwriter, activist, and folklife advocate helped the Library mark the opening of the new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery with a very special "Live! at the Library" concert presentation. Around the concert, she spent a week in residence at the Library doing research, meeting with staff, and participating in our June Family Day activities. Merchant, who fronted the band 10,000 Maniacs during its most successful years and went on to a solo career of sustained depth and brilliance, is also a member of the American Folklife Center's Board of Trustees. Alongside a few of her own compositions, the concert featured mostly traditional folksongs which have connections to our unparalleled archival collections. In this blog, you can watch the concert itself and then explore these archival connections, including source recordings, photographs, links, and the stories behind the songs.

Homegrown Plus: Blues with Phil Wiggins (1954-2024)

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The passing of harmonica virtuoso and blues master Phil Wiggins on May 7, 2024, was a sad event for the music world, and particularly for the American Folklife Center. Phil was one of the most celebrated musicians in the blues nationwide, and one of the most important roots musicians of any kind in the Washington area. For those reasons among others, AFC has featured Phil in concerts probably more often than any other musician during the last few decades. In this post, we'll bring together most of Phil's appearances that were shot on video, show you some never-before-seen photos of Phil, and pay tribute to a longtime friend of the Center.

Five people outdoors holding musical instruments

Homegrown Plus: The Berntsons, Andrea Hoag, and Loretta Kelley

Posted by: Stephen Winick

We're continuing the Homegrown Plus series with a couple of classic concerts of Scandinavian music.  Way back in 2009 we presented the Berntsons, a Norwegian American band who learned their music in rural Wisconsin before moving to Virginia. The Berntsons were joined onstage by the trio of Andrea Hoag, Loretta Kelley, and Charlie Pilzer. Among them they played pump organ, fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, six-string and twelve-string guitars, and double bass. Six years later, Hoag and Kelley returned with their fiddles for a program we called "A Tour of Norwegian and Swedish Fiddle Styles." Among them, the Berntsons, Hoag, Kelley, and Pilzer have earned Grammy awards and nominations, they've played on concert stages and at folk festivals nationwide, and, most importantly, they are preserving a living tradition of Nordic folk music for us to enjoy. Back in those days, we were recording interviews primarily on audio, but we did ask for extended essays on the performers. So in this post, you'll find both concert videos along with those essays provided by the musicians. 

Three people play Hardanger fiddle, viola d'amore, and Nyckelharpa.

Homegrown Plus: Northern Resonance

Posted by: Stephen Winick

We're continuing the Homegrown Plus series with Northern Resonance, a Scandinavian string trio rooted in traditional folk music. As usual for this series, you’ll find a concert video, an interview video, and a set of links to explore. Northern Resonance perform traditional and newly composed roots music on a previously untested combination of instruments: Swedish viola d’amore, hardanger fiddle and nyckelharpa. They combine Scandinavian music with explosive rhythms and grand chamber-like arrangements, taking folk music in a new direction. The members of Northern Resonance are highly skilled and accomplished musicians. The three instruments they play are all bowed stringed instruments, and they all make use of sympathetic strings. The sympathetic strings are not played by the musicians, but vibrate due to their proximity to the bowed strings, providing the "resonance" of the group's name. With these unusual instruments and their lively tunes, Northern Resonance delighted our audience in the Whittall Pavilion on March 7, 2024.