Participation Type
Workshop
Session Title
Session 10.14 Folklore and Folkways
Presentation #1 Title
Ballad Gems from Western Pennsylvania
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Concentrating on several particularly compelling source singers and their communities in western Pennsylvania, learn to sing and play (or listen to) songs collected by Penn State folklorist Samuel P. Bayard, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of Bayard’s source singers were elderly people who had in turn learned these traditional songs from their elders. The material connects to ballads in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the Southern Appalachians and the Ozarks. Together we’ll explore why these songs remain meaningful. There will be a brief presentation about Bayard's stellar but largely unpublished work in transcribing and studying northern Appalachian ballads. We'll very briefly discuss the Bayard Project, by Beth Folkemer and Dearest Home, which is bringing these songs to life in the 21st Century context. If you’d like to play along, please bring musical instruments with you. Members of Dearest Home will assist in teaching the songs, and a few extra instruments will be available.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
The Rev. Beth Bergeron Folkemer is an independent researcher and musician who studies and presents traditional ballads from North America, the British Isles and Ireland. With the band "Dearest Home" she is recording songs and ballads from the unpublished Samuel P. Bayard Folk Song Collection, and she is preparing a book of arrangements.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Dr. Stephen P. Folkemer, Professor of Church Music and Cantor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, has published many choral and organ works. With his wife, Beth Bergeron Folkemer, he has published Of the Land and Seasons: A Folk Song Paraphrase Setting of Holy Communion, a service that lifts up rural life and the care of earth, and he is a member of Dearest Home.
Ballad Gems from Western Pennsylvania
Harris Hall 234
Concentrating on several particularly compelling source singers and their communities in western Pennsylvania, learn to sing and play (or listen to) songs collected by Penn State folklorist Samuel P. Bayard, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of Bayard’s source singers were elderly people who had in turn learned these traditional songs from their elders. The material connects to ballads in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the Southern Appalachians and the Ozarks. Together we’ll explore why these songs remain meaningful. There will be a brief presentation about Bayard's stellar but largely unpublished work in transcribing and studying northern Appalachian ballads. We'll very briefly discuss the Bayard Project, by Beth Folkemer and Dearest Home, which is bringing these songs to life in the 21st Century context. If you’d like to play along, please bring musical instruments with you. Members of Dearest Home will assist in teaching the songs, and a few extra instruments will be available.
