Organizations:

City Lore - An New York City-based cultural heritage/folklife non-profit organization. Citylore promotes, presents and works to preserve the traditional arts and local culture of New York City. City Lore says:

"As cultural activists we are committed to the principles of cultural equity and democracy. We believe that cultural diversity is a positive social value to be protected and encouraged; that authentic democracy requires active participation in cultural life, not just passive consumption of cultural products; and that our cultural heritage is a resource for improving our quality of life.

 

PAMAR - Pan American Musical Art Research, Inc., is a non-profit organization seeking to promote better understanding between the various cultures and countries of the Americas, primarily through an ongoing and vital exchange of their music, musicians and dancers.

 

People:

JOSEPH HICKERSON

Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song/Culture at the Library of Congress (1963-1998). Secretary (8 years) of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Chair of the Committee on Archiving of the American Folklore Society, and on the advisory boards of Sing Out!, John Edwards Memorial Foundation, Old Town School of Folk Music Resource Center.

 

HENRIETTA YURCHENCO, PROF. EMERITA

Ethnomusicologist at The City College of New York, Exec. Board of PAMAR: Pan American Musical Arts Research. Host of first ever folk and world music radio show in United States on WNYC in 1940, producer of Leadbelly’s program on same station. Author of first biography of Woody Guthrie. Principal field recordist of pre-Columbian musics of Mexico.

 

MIKE SEEGER

Folk musician; Founding member of New Lost City Ramblers; Guggenheim Fellow, Smithsonian Institution Visiting Scholar; National Endowment for the Arts Grantee; Director: American Old Time Music Festival, 1975-78; Smithsonian American Folklife Company, 1968-76, Member, Board of Directors: Newport Folk Festival, 1963-67; National Folk Festival, 1972-78; Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, 1973-86; Trustee, John Edwards Memorial Foundation, 1962-present. National Endowment for the Arts (Member of Jazz/Folk/Ethnic Music Panel, 1973-77), First Prize, Banjo Category, Old Fiddlers Convention, Galax, Virginia, 1958

 

DR. CECELIA CONWAY

(Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) Folklorist, film maker, author and Professor of English and Folklore. Her scholarly interests include the banjo, fiddle and other music traditions, women and literature in the South and Appalachian literature. She has published African Banjo Echos in Appalachia (1995, University of Tennessee Press) and co-produced the Smithsonian CD, Black Banjo Songsters of NC and VA. Atlantic Monthly considered her book a "landmark study" and the CD a "rare collection" of music. She is currently working on a second CD, Black Banjo Songsters of the Blue Ridge, for Smithsonian Folkways.