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New Harmonies:
Celebrating American Roots
Music Tour
2009-2010

The West Virginia Humanities Council has selected six community venues for a state tour of the Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit "New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music." The exhibit, sponsored by Verizon, will travel the state from April of 2009 through January of 2010.

Verizon logo.

The community venues hosting the exhibit are:

Brass Tree Community Room, Williamson
August 28 - October 9

Youth Museum of Southern West Virginia, Beckley
October 16 - November 30
www.beckleymine.com/ym/ym-overview.cfm

Grant County Library Performing Arts Center, Petersburg
December 4 - January 24

www.GCArtsCouncil.googlepages.com

New Harmonies was developed especially for rural audiences and small institutions that typically do not have access to traveling exhibitions. It features recorded music stations, photos, objects, and text relating the stories of a variety of forms of roots music and performers the likes of Bill Monroe, Mahalia Jackson, Blind Willie Johnson, The Chuck Wagon Gang, The Carter Family, Bessie Smith, Bob Wills, Narciso Martinez, Woody Guthrie, and many others.

New Harmonies Exhibit on display in the restored B&O Railroad Heritage Center in Grafton. Special Preview of New Harmonies Exhibit on May 28, 2009 at the B&O Railroad Heritage Center in Grafton, WV.
(From l to r: Julie Lamb and Becky Poe Henderson of the B&O Railroad Heritage Center in Grafton, with Verizon sponsor representatives Ashley Stender and David Ombres, attended a special preview of New Harmonies Exhibit on May 28 at the B&O Center; New Harmonies on display in the restored B&O Railroad Heritage Center; Preview guests made use of the listening stations in the New Harmonies Exhibit.)


The Humanities Council will make available funds
for host institutions to develop local companion displays and community programs expanding on the themes presented in the exhibit. Activities will include celebrations of local music traditions.

The participating communities will also benefit from the expertise of one of West Virginia’s most respected bluegrass musicians, Buddy Griffin, who will be serving as the scholar for the tour. Griffin is a professor in the Fine Arts Department at Glenville State College where he directs the only bluegrass music college degree program in the country. He has traveled the United States for many years as a fiddler and banjo player with such major bluegrass groups as Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys and The Goins Brothers. He has been a frequent performer on the Grand Ole Opry, in Branson, Missouri, and also organizes music for the West Virginia State Folk Festival. Griffin will work with each of the tour sites to help them plan their local displays and programs.


(From l to r: The April 11 opening event for New Harmonies at the Ice House in Berkeley Springs drew a full house; Representatives from the six New Harmonies tour sites met in Berkeley Springs on April 7 and 8, 2009, to learn how to assemble the exhibition that arrived in 19 crates.)

 

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