Participation Type
Discussion
Session Title
Session 8.18 Folklore and Folkways
Presentation #1 Title
Ballad Round Table
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Ballads lure us into the past and offer us perspective to consider the present and future. Though the context in which we sing has been altered over time, there is a humanity and emotion expressed through the art form that binds together generations. What can we learn about our culture and each other through singing and contemplating our ballad tradition? Ballad singing, though long a tradition in Europe and America, has evolved rapidly in the past 150 years to inhabit a variety of roles—from capitalized performance art to private meditational practice and communal sharing. Ballads seem to hold a mystique and reverence in modern folk culture that is rarely inspected or refuted, even though modern ballad singers themselves are often as willing as any to adapt and evolve the practice of telling song-stories. Through song and story, this round table will explore many aspects of singing ballads—from political to personal. Topics will include where this younger generation of ballad singers has learned songs, sources of inspiration, their audiences, and the role/responsibilities of ballad singers today. We hope this panel will include lively conversation with panel attendees.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Susan Pepper, a Cincinnati native, is a ballad singer, songwriter and old-time musician who has spent time collecting old songs in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She produced a collection of field recordings of women ballad singers, "On the Threshold of a Dream" and recently released her own CD, “Hollerin’ Girl.”
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Saro Lynch-Thomason is an award-winning ballad singer from Asheville, NC and producer of the Blair Pathways Project. She has performed ballads alongside respected mentors Bobby McMillon and Sheila Kay Adams, received a Sound Archives Fellowship at Berea College to learn rare Eastern Kentucky ballads, and recently released her first CD of ballads, “Vessel”.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Elizabeth LaPrelle is an acclaimed ballad-singer and banjo-player from Virginia. She does music, storytelling, visual art, and The Floyd Radio Show in the duo Anna and Elizabeth (www.annaandelizabeth.com).
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Anna Roberts-Gevalt is a fiddler and banjo player, oral historian and visual artist, who performs with Elizabeth LaPrelle. She produced a compilation CD of young Appalachian musicians, and a series of biographies of female fiddlers from Kentucky.
Ballad Round Table
Harris Hall 135
Ballads lure us into the past and offer us perspective to consider the present and future. Though the context in which we sing has been altered over time, there is a humanity and emotion expressed through the art form that binds together generations. What can we learn about our culture and each other through singing and contemplating our ballad tradition? Ballad singing, though long a tradition in Europe and America, has evolved rapidly in the past 150 years to inhabit a variety of roles—from capitalized performance art to private meditational practice and communal sharing. Ballads seem to hold a mystique and reverence in modern folk culture that is rarely inspected or refuted, even though modern ballad singers themselves are often as willing as any to adapt and evolve the practice of telling song-stories. Through song and story, this round table will explore many aspects of singing ballads—from political to personal. Topics will include where this younger generation of ballad singers has learned songs, sources of inspiration, their audiences, and the role/responsibilities of ballad singers today. We hope this panel will include lively conversation with panel attendees.
