APPALACHIAN CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
History, Nature, Culture
Special Guests
Earl White
Earl White String Band, Festival Finale
Fiddling Earl White has been a mainstay in the old time, folk and dance community for more than 45 years. An original and founding member of the famed Green Grass Cloggers, Earl is one of few Black Americans preserving and playing Appalachian style old time music. Oldtime music was once an intricate part of Black communities and formed the foundation of American music of today. Earl White is well known for his extensive repertoire of tunes, and his heartfelt, syncopated, driving style. He has played in numerous old time string bands, and he currently leads the "Earl White String Band”. The Earl White String Band has emerged as a favored dance band for both square and contra dances. The band performs at festivals and instructional music camps throughout the US and abroad.
Earl White String Band includes Earl White, Adrienne White, and Jason Dilg
Nancy Cook
Guest Speaker, Festival Finale
Nancy Cook is a writer and teaching artist from St. Paul. She serves as flash fiction editor for Kallisto Gaia Press and is a regional vice-president for the League of Minnesota Poets. She founded and directs “The Witness Project,” a program of writing workshops and community-engaged initiatives in Minneapolis designed to enable creative work by underrepresented voices. In the fall of 2022, Cook served as artist-in-residence at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. Previous residencies include Artsland, County Tyrone, in Northern Ireland, Gettysburg National Historic Park, Kingsbrae Gardens in New Brunswick, Canada, and the former Fergus Falls State Hospital in western Minnesota. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Cook has been awarded grants from, among others, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Parks Arts Foundation, the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota Humanities Center, and Integrity Arts and Culture. In 2020, she received a Featured Writer Award from Alternating Currents Press for works of historically-based fiction and poetry. She is particularly interested in exploring the intersections of geography, history, and cultural heritage in her work.
Appearance sponsored in part by the National Park Service's Harpers Ferry Historical National Park
H. Rosi Song, Ph.D.
Guest Speaker, Lost in Plain Sight - August 23
H. Rosi Song specializes in the literature, intellectual history, and culture of contemporary Spain. She is the author of Lost in Transition: Constructing Memory in Contemporary Spain (Liverpool UP, 2016), and the co-editor ofTraces of Contamination: Unearthing the Francoist Legacy in Contemporary Spanish Discourse (Bucknell UP, 2004) and of Towards a Cultural Archive of la Movida (Farleigh Dickinson UP, 2013). Her articles have appeared in Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, MLN, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Romance Notes, Hispamérica, Revista Iberoamericana, Hispania, among others. She teaches courses on modern and contemporary Spanish narrative and culture, detective fiction, and film.
Engagement sponsored In conjunction with an IMPACT grant awarded by Durham University (England)
