Fri 12 Oct 2007
New Harmonies : Exploring American Roots Music
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Carbondale Community Arts is proud to help host this interactive touring exhibit from the Smithsonian Institute’s Museums on Main Program. It is scheduled for Carbondale September 29 through November 10 at University Mall.
Exhibition Description: “Listen to America’s music and hear the story of freedom. It’s the story of people in a New World, places they have left behind, and ideas they have brought with them. It is the story of people who were already here, but whose world is remade. The distinct cultural identities of all these people are carried in song - both sacred and secular. Their music tracks the unique history of many peoples reshaping each other into one incredibly diverse and complex people - Americans. Their music is the roots of American music. The music that emerges is known by names like blues, country and western, folk, and gospel. The sounds are as sweet as mountain air and as sultry as a summer night in Mississippi delta country. The instruments vary from fiddle to banjo to accordian to guitar. Yet all the instruments merge, as do the rhythms, melodies and harmonies, producing completely new sounds - new music. The musics merge because this is America. New waves of music ride ashore in the hearts and heads of new immigrants and they create still new sounds from what they have brought with them and what they find here. And nothing expresses the tensions - or the triumphs - of this journey into democracy quite like the music that it spawns. The main beat of the exhibition is the on-going cultural process that has made America the birthplace of more music than any place on earth. The exhibition provides a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of multi-cultural exchange.” |