Join App State’s Trevor McKenzie to learn more about Appalachia’s music traditions as a form of creative place-keeping within the region. Place-keeping is the active care and maintenance of a place and its social fabric by the people who live and work there, according to the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture.
Traditional music is a placekeeping tool essential to sustaining regional communities — ballads are a form of community memory, instrumental techniques are a continuum of thoughts and movements from elder members of communities, and tunes bearing the names of mountains or streams lead to a heightened appreciation of regional ecology. Through these examples and more, this program will highlight music’s role in keeping and continuing cultural memories connected to locales across Appalachia.