Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Pickin’ Halls: Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Performance in Institutional Spaces
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Within and around Appalachia, city centers are often home to growing institutional spaces that house and support music performances. Though these spaces may house performances of bluegrass and old-time musics, their acoustic and logistical design is often geared towards art music performance (such as a concert hall geared towards symphonies) or non-musical institutional settings (such as a conference room, classroom, or busy street corner in a commercial or tourist area.) This paper explores the paradoxes and practices of performing bluegrass and old-time musics in places that are acoustically and logistically different from their original spaces and places of music-making. Case studies in this paper include folk music performance ensembles at educational institutions in the Southeastern United States, IBMA and other music conferences that take place in hotels or conference centers, and a growing trend of street music performance or “busking” in growing tourist cities such as Asheville, North Carolina. In all of these cases, bluegrass and old-time musics are displaced from their traditional performance spaces, and must adapt to new physical surroundings. How does this phenomenon affect both the music performances themselves, and the cities and institutions where this occurs? These musical practices of displacement may reflect new trends in 21st-century bluegrass and old-time musics.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Holly Riley is an ethnomusicologist and fiddle player currently pursuing a PhD at Florida State University. Originally from Durham, North Carolina, she tours regionally in a wide range of folk music genres, teaches fiddle to kids, and instructs a Modern Popular Music course and an Irish Ensemble at FSU. Her research centers around vernacular American musics, community-institution interaction, country music and national identity, and performance politics.
Pickin’ Halls: Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Performance in Institutional Spaces
Within and around Appalachia, city centers are often home to growing institutional spaces that house and support music performances. Though these spaces may house performances of bluegrass and old-time musics, their acoustic and logistical design is often geared towards art music performance (such as a concert hall geared towards symphonies) or non-musical institutional settings (such as a conference room, classroom, or busy street corner in a commercial or tourist area.) This paper explores the paradoxes and practices of performing bluegrass and old-time musics in places that are acoustically and logistically different from their original spaces and places of music-making. Case studies in this paper include folk music performance ensembles at educational institutions in the Southeastern United States, IBMA and other music conferences that take place in hotels or conference centers, and a growing trend of street music performance or “busking” in growing tourist cities such as Asheville, North Carolina. In all of these cases, bluegrass and old-time musics are displaced from their traditional performance spaces, and must adapt to new physical surroundings. How does this phenomenon affect both the music performances themselves, and the cities and institutions where this occurs? These musical practices of displacement may reflect new trends in 21st-century bluegrass and old-time musics.
