Folk Art and Folk Music Speakers

presented by

at the

Catskills Folk Lyceum

Saturday, October 22, 2 p.m.

 Roxbury Arts Center, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury 12474



Jim Kimball, Ethnomusicologist SUNY Geneseo

Speaking on "Old-Time Tunes and Dances

in Rural New York



Varick Chittenden, Director Emeritus of

 Traditional Arts in Upstate New York

Speaking on "Folklore is in Our Nature"

Also on view, an exhibit of folk art landscapes

 "Growing Up To Brush"

Featuring artists Nellie Bly Ballard and Don Strausser

What gives Catskills folk art, music and dance their Catskills flavor?  Are they distinct or are they about the same as folk art, music and dance in other regions of New York State?

On October 22, at 2 p.m. at the Roxbury Arts Center, Catskills Folk Connection introduces the Catskills Folk Lyceum, a set of talks by renowned New York State specialists who will address folk expression in painting, sculpture, fiddling and square dancing in their regions and in the Catskills. 

Varick Chittenden’s talk,  “Folklore is in Our Nature,” will explore the relationship between folk art and the natural environment, with examples from the North Country/Adirondacks as well as the Catskills, showing “common ground shared by our regions, [and] continuities and changes over time in local folk life and folk art.”  Chittenden, a folklorist, is the founding director, now emeritus, of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, and emeritus professor at SUNY Canton.

Jim Kimball’s talk “Old Time Tunes and Dances in Rural New York”  will offer “stories and comparisons about round, square and contra dancing from different regions of New York” including the Catskills.   Kimball is an ethnomusicologist who teaches at SUNY Geneseo and who specializes in old-time music, plays the fiddle, and calls square dances.

Kimball contributed important information and photographs to Catskills Folk Connection’s recent publication of the CD “Tunes I Learned From My Dad” featuring the late Hilt Kelly on the fiddle and his wife Stella Kelly on the piano.  The CD will be available for purchase at the Catskills Folk Lyceum on Saturday, October 22, 2 p.m., at the Roxbury Arts Center, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, NY  12474.

Catskills Folk Connection is sponsored by the Roxbury Arts Group and is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Council for the Humanities, Gov. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the O’Connor Foundation.  Contact: vscheer@juno.com 607-746-3521.  For more information: www.catskillsfolkconnection.blogspot.com

Catskills Folk Connection

presents 

A New CD from Hilt Kelly

Catskills Folk Connection is proud to present a new CD of fiddle tunes from the late Hilt Kelly, accompanied by his wife Stella on the piano.   In 2010 Hilt and Stella recorded these tunes at Dry Hill Studios in Oneonta, accompanied by CFC folklorist, Karyl Eaglefeathers.  The CD from that session will have its official release at Roxbury Arts Group's Fiddlers!23 next weekend, on Sunday, October 9.    Tonight's Catskills Folk radio program at 7 p.m. on WIOX 91.3 FM will preview the ten recordings on the album. which will be on sale for the first time at Fiddlers!

Jim Kimball, long-time emcee for past Fiddlers! concerts and an ethnomusicologist at SUNY Geneseo, reviewed the mostly nameless album tracks.  He was able to name a few more than were already known, and to explain why the rest had no names.  

"Quadrilles, a common older term for square dances, were published in great numbers especially in the mid to late 19th century, usually in sets of three to five tunes, the whole set haviang one title.  The first and second tune were most often in 6/8 time and had two or three sections which changed keys (e.g., the A part in D, the B part in A, sometimes a C part in G or D).  The last tune in a set was generally in 2/4 and in the style of a reel or quick hornpipe.  In folk practice musicians would replace the published last tune with some familiar reel or breakdown-like tune.  The first and second figures were someitmes termed first or second "change" and the last figure was often called a "jig" - as in a lively dance, but not usually a 6/8 tune.  Since individual tunes within the published quadrille sets had no specific titles, they have often survived as namel;ess tunes."

Toward the end of a square dance Hilt would say, "Here's a tune I learned from my Dad, Carson Kelly.  I don't know the name of it and I don't think he did either."  Sometimes there was an unnamed dance that went with the tune; together they harked back to the house dances here in the Catskill Mountains where people gathered to entertain themselves with family, friends and neighbors.

Here are the tunes on the CD.  You will hear them tonight on WIOX at 7 p.m. 

1. Quadrille in D & A (No.1)

2. The Girl I Left Behind Me

3. Off She Goes

4. Quadrille in D & A (No. 2)

5. Quadrille in D & B Minor

6. Chassez By Your Partner (also Delaware County Reel)

7. Quadrille in G & D

8. Apple Brewer's Reel

9. Reel in D

10. Fred Wilson's Clog (also Harvest Home)

The publication of "Tunes I Learned From My Dad" is the first in a new initiative by Catskills Folk Connection.  With support from the Manhattan Country School, Roxbury Arts Group and the New York State Council on the Arts, CFC will publish or re-publish recordings and/or texts of Catskills traditional music and dance.  Sales from the first CDs will create a rolling fund to support the next publication project.  These projects may include  HIlt Kelly and the Sidekick's square dance cassette, a recording of Hilt Kelly playing samples of tunes at the New York Old Tyme Fiddlers Association in Osceola, a 1980s recording plus booket of Hilt Kelly and other 20th century square dance callers called "The Hardwood Floor" from Peter Blue and Tom Buckner, and possibly Dances from Woodland: Music and Calls by Norman Cazden, a compendium of tunes and calls collected by campers and staff at Camp Woodland in the mid-20th century.

Catskills Folk Connection is sponsored by Roxbury Arts Group and is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Council for the Humanities, Governor Cuomo and the NYS Legislature, and the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation.