The Banjo Gathering, in collaboration with Elderly Instruments and IBMA, will host a new two-day program at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass business conference, “Roots Revival: A Black Stringband Symposium.” The September 26-27 symposium at the Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, is sponsored in part by an Arnold Shultz Fund grant from the IBMA Foundation and will celebrate the Black stringband traditions of the Piedmont region and beyond.
IBMA Business Development Director Anna Kline said the symposium will be the first in a series of annual legacy preservation sessions at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass week. “The Black Stringband Symposium honors a foundational story of our bluegrass music roots beginning with the Black stringband traditions and the ways in which our musical communities are historically intertwined,” Kline said. “Black stringband music continues to shape how we listen, play, and write music.”
The six sessions across two days explore Black contributions to bluegrass and other traditional music; contemporary conversations about diversity and inclusion in traditional music; and the ways in which Black musicians, builders, and researchers navigate bluegrass and traditional music spaces. This symposium works to tell a more complete story about the origins and influences that shaped the bluegrass genre as we know it today.
“It is important for organizations like IBMA and The Banjo Gathering not only to promote better representation of the contributions of Black stringband music at events like World of Bluegrass, but to work together to make it happen,” said Lillian Werbin, owner of Elderly Instruments, co-planner of The Banjo Gathering, and IBMA Foundation board member.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in awareness of the centrality of Black American contributions to genres including bluegrass and old time in recent years,” said Kristina Gaddy, co-planner of The Banjo Gathering and author of the critically acclaimed book, Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History. “We want to continue increasing that awareness by bringing Black musicians and scholars to events like the IBMA Business Conference.”
Session descriptions:
Navigating Narratives: Being a Black Woman in Folk Music. Building on the “Avoiding Tokenism in Traditional Music” panel from 2023, this panel of Black women in the traditional music industry explores how they each build upon their experiences and the expectations placed upon them to create authentic representation in the industry. Lillian Werbin, the owner of Elderly Instruments, will lead a conversation with educator and organizer of the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival Brandi Waller-Pace; musician Kaia Kater; and scholar Maya Brown-Boateng.
Making Instruments: Construction as History: Within the history of American traditional music, Black instrument builders have often been overlooked, from the creators of gourd banjos in early America to contemporary makers today. Patrick Sawyer of Pisgah Banjos will lead a discussion with banjo builder Dena Ross Jennings, violin maker Amanda Ewing, and instrument repairer Moriah Robeson about how building instruments honors the history of the music while making it more accessible to broader audiences.
Journey of a Song: This panel and showcase will explore how songs from the Black tradition became bluegrass standards. Cultural historians Valerie Díaz Leroy and Jen Larson will lead a discussion with musicians about how we can accurately and appropriately bring music history into our performances and recorded work.
Black Music in Appalachia Showcase: In this showcase, Black Appalachian musicians Dena Ross Jennings, Kelle Jolly, and Tray Wellington will be performing and discussing the influences the region has had on their music with moderator Dr. Lee Bidgood, professor and director of the Institute for Appalachian Music and Culture at East Tennessee State University.
Beyond Bluegrass: In recent years, Arnold Shultz has been acknowledged as a core figure in bluegrass history. This showcase features musicians Darcy Ford-James, Art Bouman, and Nelson Williams and how they build a diversity of styles and bring in other traditional music into their repertoire.
Alive in the Archives: This panel will explore how Black bluegrass and folk musicians use source and archival recordings to bridge the gap in person-to-person transmission of music between Black musicians who were recorded in the 20th century and musicians today. Musicians and scholars Jake Blount, Joe Johnson, and Justin Golden will play some tunes and discuss their research methods and limitations with Maya Brown-Boateng, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh and Andrew W. Mellon Fellow of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Banjo Gathering is the only forum focused entirely on the banjo as a historical, cultural, and design object, in contrast to the many banjo camps, festivals and gatherings that are focused principally on playing the banjo. Since 1998, the Gathering has been the platform for sharing between banjo collectors, researchers, instrument builders, and musicians. The Gathering’s signature event is an annual weekend-long conference of presentations, display, and a performance.
The symposium is presented by Elderly Instruments, The Banjo Gathering, IBMA, and the Arnold Shultz Fund of the IBMA Foundation. It is sponsored by the IBMA Foundation’s Arnold Shultz Fund, Pisgah Banjo Company, Bluegrass Pride, Folk Alliance International, the DC Bluegrass Union, Ear Trumpet Labs, and the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention.
RETURN to the August 4, 2024 issue of The Cornerstone.
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