Event Videos

Charly Lowry is a dynamic singer-songwriter from Pembroke, North Carolina. An Indigenous woman belonging to the Lumbee and Tuscarora Tribes, sheconsiders her work a platform for raising awareness around issues that plague underdeveloped and underserved Native communities. Lowry is a songwriter who accompanies herself on acoustic and electric guitars and Native American hand drum. She earned a semi-finalist spot on season 3 of American…

Bennett Konesni is a singer, farmer, musician and administrator, based where he grew up in midcoast Maine, and also at Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island, New York, where parts of his family have lived since 1652. He has been singing work songs while working since he was a teenager on schooners in Penobscot Bay. Since 2007, Bennett has been using work songs at Sylvester…

Join us for a conversation with Brother Arnold Hadd, who actively carries on the 200-plus-year oral tradition of singing Shaker songs. Hadd has been collaborating with American composer Kevin Siegfried, whose choral arrangements of Shaker songs are frequently performed by modern vocal ensembles. While staying true to the essential nature of the original songs, Siegfried's choral arrangements serve to bring the music to a…

Brother Arnold Hadd, one of those members, actively carries on the 200-plus-year oral tradition of singing Shaker songs. Brother Arnold has been collaborating with American composer Kevin Siegfried, whose choral arrangements of Shaker songs are frequently performed by modern vocal ensembles. While staying true to the essential nature of the original songs, Siegfried's choral arrangements serve to bring the music to a wider audience.…

A conversation with ethnomusicologist John Ananda Graham, discussing traditional chant and folk music from the country of Georgia.

Tenzin Choegyal is a Tibetan/Australian artist, composer, activist, musical director and cultural ambassador, widely considered one of the world's finest musicians with Tibetan heritage. While proudly continuing the unbroken nomadic lineage central to his music, Tenzin also embraces opportunities to take his music into more contemporary, uncharted territory, both in the studio and on stage. Tenzin has nine independent albums, three of them with…

Windborne is Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon. The four singers grew up immersed in the traditional song and dance communities of New England and discovered a love of world folk music in their teens. All four have traveled extensively in the U.S. and throughout the world with Village Harmony, Northern Harmony and the Renewal Chorus, leading workshops and…

The Spartimu ensemble is devoted to traditional polyphonic singing as passed on in the oral traditions of Corsica. Their style and repertoire are based on deep research into the practice of the singing tradition known as "cantu in paghjella," which is recognized by UNESCO as an important and endangered tradition ("intangible cultural heritage in urgent need of safeguarding"). The ensemble's projects also encompass the…

Master traditional Bulgarian singer Neli Andreeva was born 1976 in Asenovgrad. She grew up in the resort of Narechen in the majestic Rhodope Mountains. There she learned her first folk songs from her grandmother and mother. Neli graduated from the music school for folk instruments and singing in the village of Shiroka Laka in 1995. Neli Andreeva is renowned for her stirring interpretations of…

Join us for a conversation about Samoan dance and culture. The Samoan Studies Institute at American Samoa Community College formed the Students' Association For Fa'asamoa (SAFF) in 2009. It is comprised of students at the college who are interested in learning about Samoan culture. Its purpose is to teach college students the Fa'asamoa, or the Samoan way, and to preserve its traditions. Since its…

Kongero is a Swedish vocal group, consisting of four women who sing folksongs: Lotta Andersson, Emma Björling, Sofia Hultqvist Kott, and Anna Wikénius. Kongero was formed in 2005 when the original members met at a Nordic folk music conference. There they started singing together and found that their voices and harmonies blended, complementing each other perfectly. Since 2005, they have performed their polyphonic a…

International recording artist Herb Ohta, Jr., is one of today's most prolific ukulele masters. Influenced by Jazz, R&B, Latin and Brazilian music, as well as traditional Hawaiian sounds, he puts his stamp on Hawaiian music by pushing the limits of tone and technique on this beautiful instrument. The son of ukulele legend "Ohta-san," he started playing at the age of three, and began teaching…

International recording artist Herb Ohta, Jr., is one of today's most prolific 'ukulele masters. Influenced by Jazz, R&B, Latin and Brazilian music, as well as traditional Hawaiian sounds, he puts his stamp on Hawaiian music by pushing the limits of tone and technique on this beautiful instrument. The son of 'ukulele legend "Ohta-san," he started playing at the age of three, and began teaching…

Join us for a conversation with Julian Kytasty, a third generation player of the bandura, a Ukrainian stringed instrument with similarities to the lute and the zither.

The Chosen Few stands firmly in the great tradition of unaccompanied religious singing in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Although only a handful of African American a cappella quartets sing in Virginia today, Black four-part harmony groups were singing in Virginia at least as early as the mid-1800s, and the Tidewater region alone produced more than two hundred such groups in the century following…

The Chosen Few stands firmly in the great tradition of unaccompanied religious singing in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Although only a handful of African American a cappella quartets sing in Virginia today, Black four-part harmony groups were singing in Virginia at least as early as the mid-1800s, and the Tidewater region alone produced more than two hundred such groups in the century following…

Rodopi Ensemble has been presenting the sounds, rhythms and melodies of Thrace for almost three decades. The group started its musical journey in the 1990s, and took the name Rodopi Ensemble to indicate its border-crossing musical style. The mountains of Rodopi, the largest mountains in Thrace, act as a musical unifying link that connects people living in the three countries crossed by the mountains:…

Watch a conversation with Janusz Prusinowski who discusses progressive village music from Poland.

John Fenn of the American Folklife Center speaks with Quentin Baxter, Kevin Hamilton, Quiana Parler, Clay Ross, and Charlton Singleton, of the band Ranky Tanky. The conversation covers the musical backgrounds of each member, the emergence of Ranky Tanky as a band, and the ways in which their music engages with tradition and community.

Janusz Prusinowski Kompania play rural music of Polish villages on fiddles, flutes, accordions, and other traditional instruments. They ground their music in dance rhythms, adding a modern improvisational flair to old melodies. They follow in traditions of village masters they have learned from, including Jan Lewandowski, Kazimierz Meto, Józef Zaraś, Piotr and Jan Gaca, Tadeusz Kubiak and many others. But they are also a…

Watch a conversation with WÖR, who discuss folk and early music from Belgium.

WÖR injects new energy into 18th-century melodies from the Flanders region of Belgium. Their sound has elements of folk, early music, and jazz, and shines an inventive spotlight on the tunes preserved in old Flemish manuscripts.

Vigüela is a traditional folk quintet with a commitment to the rural musical traditions of central Spain. The band was established in the mid-1980s, after the Franco regime, by young people who looked to folk culture for a way to channel their creative desires while staying rooted in their local communities. Grounded in this history, the band members value their tradition and perform it…

Vigüela is a traditional folk quintet with a commitment to the rural musical traditions of central Spain. The band was established in the mid-1980s, after the Franco regime, by young people who looked to folk culture for a way to channel their creative desires while staying rooted in their local communities. Grounded in this history, the band members value their tradition and perform it…

The Armagh Rhymers are one of the most celebrated traditional music and theatre ensembles on the island of Ireland. Since a group of talented actors and musicians founded the Rhymers in the 1970s, they have delighted audiences at festivals, arts centers, theatres, and schools, throughout Ireland and around the world. Through music, storytelling and drama, they provide an experience that is entertaining, educational and…