The Ralph Stanley Museum & Traditional Mountain Music Center will present the German & Italian Roots of Appalachian Music, a performance and lecture event which explores the diverse roots of the region's music, on Tuesday, December 18th at 7pm in Clintwood's Jettie Baker Center. Special guests for this event include Gerry Milnes of the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia and Rafe Stefanini of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. Reserve your tickets early for this rare opportunity to explore the history of mountain music with some of the region's best performers and scholars!
Each month from September to December 2007, the Roots of Appalachian Music Concert Series explores a different side of Appalachian music's history and development, including events highlighting Africa, the British Isles, Germany and Italy, and the string band tradition in the mountains. This important series also seeks to extend special programming to area schools to promote educational outreach and provide area school systems with opportunities to work with regional scholars and musicians.
The first guest in this event, Gerry Milnes, will offer special presentations to highlight the German influence on fiddle music and the role of the dulcimer in Appalachian tradition. These presentations will include slide shows of players and makers as well as live music to demonstrate these important connections.
Named “WV Filmmaker of the Year” in 2007, Gerry currently serves as the Folk Arts Coordinator for the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia. His newest book is entitled Signs, Cures and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore and is available from the University of Tennessee Press. He has also published Play of a Fiddle: Traditional Music, Dance and Folklore in West Virginia, University Press of Kentucky, and Granny Will Your Dog Bite: and Other Mt. Rhymes, on August House. As a musician, he plays in the group “Gandydancer,” an old-time string band.
Rafe Stefanini will also appear during this next performance event to bridge the gap between Italy and Appalachia with a special musical performance. With roots in Italy and a love of the fiddle and banjo music of Appalachia, Rafe truly demonstrates and lives the connections between our two regions.
Stefanini formed his first band with his brothers Bruno and Gianni when he still lived in Italy. After his move to the United States, Rafe formed a new band with Stefan Senders and Carol Elizabeth Jones called the Wildcats. Between 1985 and 1990, the group released two recordings, and in 1989 were selected by the United States Information Agency to tour Southeast Asia, appearing in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei.
In 1990, Rafe teamed up with Bruce Molsky and Dirk Powell to form the L-7s, a power trio featuring twin and sometimes triple fiddling. Upon Dirk's departure from the band in 1993, Beverly Smith joined on guitar. The band changed its name to Big Hoedown, and they released a CD on Rounder Records by the same name, featuring Rafe on fiddle and banjo. They toured extensively, reaching Germany and Finland, and they became a staple at dances and dance camps. In 1998, they appeared on Garrison Keillor's “A Prairie Home Companion.”
Tickets to this special event are $5 per person for general admission and $3 for student admission. For more information about the December 18th performance, or to reserve your tickets, please contact the Ralph Stanley Museum & Traditional Mountain Music Center at (276) 926-8550.
The Roots of Appalachian Music Concert Series is made possible by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities was established in 1974 to develop and support public programs, education, and research in the humanities and to relate the humanities to public issues. The VFH promotes understanding and use of the humanities through public debate, group discussion, and individual inquiry. Principal activities of the Virginia Foundation include an internationally recognized Fellowship Program, the Virginia Folklife Program, the Virginia Center for Media and Culture, a statewide network of Regional Councils, and the Grant Program. The VFH is non-profit and non-partisan and receives support from private gifts, grants and contributions, and from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. For more information, write or call the Foundation's office at 145 Ednam Drive, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-4629, (434) 924-3296, or visit the VFH online at www.virginiafoundation.org.
The program is presented as a public service. The principal aim of the program is to discuss in an objective and nonpartisan context issues of concern and interest to citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Virginia Foundation, its contributors, or its supporting agencies.
Labels: Jettie Baker Center, live music, Roots of Appalachian Music Concert Series
