FYI.  Best, Julia Bishop
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jennifer A Cutting" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 9:56 PM
Subject: American Folklife Center Announces Webcast on SpringTraditions


Folks,

Here's news of the Library of Congress's new webcast on English and American
music and dance traditions of the spring season, featuring the James Madison
Carpenter and Anthony Grant Barrand collections.  It's low-budget, but
sincere.

Please help us spread the word by forwarding this announcement to relevant
listservs, etc.

Apologies if you've received this posting before... and more apologies if
you receive it again!

Happy Spring!

Jennifer



=======================================
Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife Specialist (Reference)
Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, D.C. 20540-4610
vox: (202) 707-1731 (personal desk)
        (202) 707-5510 (reference desk)
fax:  (202) 707-2076
email: [log in to unmask]
=======================================
"A nation creates music -- the composer only
arranges it."
                            Bela Bartok
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AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER ANNOUNCES WEBCAST ON SPRING TRADITIONS

The American Folklife Center is proud to announce the release of Bringing in
the May, a new documentary video webcast in the Library of Congress Journeys
and Crossings series.  The video investigates celebrations of May Day and
other springtime traditions in English and Anglo-American communities in
both historical and contemporary settings, paying special attention to
Morris and Maypole dancing.

Bringing in the May highlights two collections in the Center's Archive of
Folk Culture: the James Madison Carpenter Collection and the Anthony Grant
Barrand Collection.  Carpenter was an American who documented folk songs,
music and dance in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, while Barrand is an
Englishman who has been studying these traditions in America since the
1970s.  The two collectors thus covered a range of almost eighty years
during which May celebrations underwent historical changes, a process
discussed in the video.  Carpenter's materials include music recorded on wax
cylinders and black and white photographs, while Barrand's are primarily
color video with sound.  These two collections help provide the webcast with
a variety of sounds and images, adding even more interest to the story of
May Day's evolving traditions.

Bringing in the May is hosted by musician and ethnomusicologist Jennifer
Cutting, who is a Folklife Specialist at the Center.  Cutting is equally
well known as a founding member of the British electric folk group The New
St. George, and as the composer/director of Ocean Orchestra, a contemporary
Celtic music group.  Her debut recording with the latter group won her five
Washington Area Music Awards at the 2005 awards ceremony: Album of the Year,
Musician of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, New Artist of the Year, and
Contemporary Folk Recording of the Year.  She was recently elected to the
Board of Governors of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the National Academy
of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Recording Academy), the organization
that awards the Grammy.  Cutting is also a former musician and dancer with
the Rock Creek Morris Women, a Morris Dance team based in the Washington,
D.C. area.

Bringing in the May is available on the Library of Congress website at

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/mayday.html
Journeys and Crossings is a series of webcasts that bring to life some of
the Library's most exciting and historically significant materials by
offering the personal insights of the staff who know them best.  The
homepage is
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/
The American Folklife Center was created by Congress in 1976 and placed at
the Library of Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through
programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference
service, live performance, exhibition, public programs and training. The
center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established in the
Library in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic
material from the United States and around the world. For more information
about the American Folklife Center, visit the Web site at
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/.