SCOTS-IRISH MUSIC
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT: SCOTS-IRISH MUSIC
A folk song, like a person, may well have a place on a family tree. Scots-Irish Music, a free public program, will explore the roots and branches of one immigrant group’s traditional music. The event will take place Saturday, January 24, 2:00 pm, at Legacy Park Auditorium, 500 South Columbia Dr, Decatur. It is sponsored by Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music (AAFFM) and the Frank Hamilton School, in partnership with Irish America 250: The South and the Scots-Irish. Irish America 250 is a national organization dedicated to educating the public about the contributions of the Irish to American history and culture.
The 90-minute program will explore how the traditional Scottish, English and Irish ballads and dance tunes brought to colonial America by immigrants from Ulster were preserved and modified in Appalachia. AAFFM President Emeritus Chris Moser will moderate a discussion with Agnes Scott College ethnomusicologist Tracey Laird, balladeer Maggie Hunter and musician Mick Kinney. After the panel discussion Hunter will perform Old World versions and Appalachian variants of selected ballads and explain how and why they changed in this country. Kinney will do the same with fiddle tunes.
Chris Moser has been researching Scots-Irish (aka Scotch-Irish) history and culture for three decades. The veteran filmmaker is currently raising funds to produce a PBS documentary, THE SCOTS-IRISH – A MUSICAL HISTORY.
Dr. Tracey Laird is a Professor of Music at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. Laird is an ethnomusicologist specializing in Southern traditional music. She has authored or edited six books, the latest being Dolly Parton: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life.
Maggie Hunter of Athens GA has been a singer in the Warblers (bluegrass), the Solstice Sisters (folk), the Humdingers (folk) and Maggie and the Mason Jars (Western swing, jazz, bluegrass). She hosts the weekly WUGA public radio show Just Folks, spanning a wide and varied range of folk music.
Mick Kinney is a versatile musician and educator who plays fiddle, country lap steel, swing guitar, old time banjo, Cajun accordion, and ragtime piano. He has taught at Swannanoa Gathering Old Time and Swing weeks, Mars Hill University’s Blue Ridge Old Time and Roots of America, Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Alabama Folk School, and many other residencies. In addition to collecting and preserving Georgia traditional music, he records and performs with his sons as the Griddle Lickers and Hickhoppers and is on staff of the Frank Hamilton Folk School in his local Atlanta area.
For more information: chrismoser [at] bellsouth.net