On Thursday, September 14, at Noon Eastern Time, in LJ-119 of the Thomas Jefferson Building (10 First Street SE, Washington DC), we will host a special concert with Nani Noam Vazana. Vazana is one of the only artists in the world who writes and composes new songs in the endangered Ladino (or Judeo-Spanish) language, a form of Spanish derived from Old Castilian which is spoken by Sephardic Jews living mostly in Israel, the Balkans, North Africa, Greece, and Turkey. We held our usual interview with Nani in advance, through the magic of internet communications, which means you can watch it now! In case you're still deciding whether to come to her concert, you should hear her tell her story and see if she can convince you! As she revealed to me, she was born in Israel to parents who had emigrated from Morocco. Her father, wishing to leave the past behind, forbade the Ladino language in the house--but her grandmother didn't have to obey. She learned some Ladino from her grandmother, and, more importantly, heard her singing Ladino songs. Years later, on a trip to play at a jazz festival, she heard a Judeo-Spanish singer in Morocco, which set her on a new path of researching Ladino songs and eventually composing her own. Of course, that's only the bare bones of the story, and Nani tells it much more fully, as well as discussing her music, her career, and her plans for the future. Watch the interview in this blog post!
In celebration of Labor Day, we wanted to honor the contributions of women to all forms of labor, of both the past and present, and what better way to do that than through song. So we started looking back at our Homegrown Concert videos, of which many are available online, as well as our Archive Challenge series and other documented performances, to create a special concert video. The result is this compilation of performances by Thea Hopkins, the women's ensemble Ialoni, Martha González, Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light, Piper Hayes, and the group Windborne. They all feature the voices of women, with the support of their male colleagues. Watch and read about the Singing in Solidarity video in this post!
Back in June, we hosted a special Homegrown concert here at the Library of Congress featuring Washington, D.C.'s own progressive hip-hop and roots music star Christylez Bacon. Christylez Bacon is a Grammy nominated progressive hip-hop artist and multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar and hand drums but excels particularly at the human beatbox (oral percussion). He also continues the oral tradition of storytelling through his lyrics and song introductions. As a special treat, Christylez brought along his friend Uasuf Gueye. Also a D.C. native, Uasuf descends from a family of West African oral historians and musicians known as Nguewel, Diali, or Jeli. We presented Christylez and Uasuf as part of Live! at the Library, the series featuring extended visiting hours and special programming every Thursday night. It was also part of the Juneteenth celebrations at the Library of Congress and was presented in cooperation with the Folklore Society of Greater Washington. Like other blogs in the Homegrown Plus series, this one includes a concert video and a video interview with the featured performer (in this case Christylez Bacon), plus links and connections to Library of Congress collections.
This is an announcement for the latest episode of the American Folklife Center's Folklife Today Podcast, which features songs from the Center's 2023 Homegrown Concert Series
We're excited to continue the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with a video concert by Deitsch, a traditional folk band from Germany. In 2023, Homegrown is presenting a combination of live concerts here at the Library of Congress and video premieres of prerecorded concerts from around the world. The prerecorded concerts premiere here on the blog, and videos of the live concerts will be placed here a few weeks after they happen. So subscribe to the blog for more great concerts all season! This is one of our prerecorded video concerts, shot on location in Germany and presented here for the first time. 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!
This guest post is from Doug Peach, a Folklife Specialist here at the Library of Congress. In it he describes materials that the Center has drawn on recently for two collection displays focused on sports and community. Introduction The American Folklife Center is, perhaps, best known for its collections of music and storytelling—and for good …
This is an announcement for a Friday, September 8th online discussion event focused on community-based cultural documentation and archival efforts, hosted by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
We're continuing the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with a video concert by the Hudaki Village Band from the Carpathian region of Ukraine. This is one of our prerecorded video concerts, shot on video in Ukraine and presented here for the first time! 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! The Hudaki Village Band is made up of nine master musicians from the Ukrainian Carpathians. In the Maramures region, a mountainous area of Southwest Ukraine on the border with Romania and Hungary, village musicians are called "hudaki." Archaic Slavic vocal traditions, Romanian melodies, Jewish rhythms and Romany temperament blend together in a local cross culture that has evolved over centuries of living side by side.
This post is a save-the-date announcement for the online discussion event, the Community-driven Archives: Local Needs/Global Practices in Safeguarding Living Cultural Heritage, bringing together panelists to discuss examples of community-guided documentation and archival preservation work from international perspectives. The event is hosted by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, in collaboration with the American Folklore Society and the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore.
