Let's Build a Railroad, by Ruth Crawford Seeger
performed by Jody Diamond, Mary Ann Haagen,
and Larry Polansky
for information, contact railroad@frogpeak.org
INFORMATION |
PRESS RELEASE | INTRODUCTION | PERFORMANCES
| PERFORMER BIOS
Let's Build a Railroad
Ruth Crawford Seeger's posthumously published
1954 children's book
containing six railroad song transcriptions
a performance
by Jody Diamond, Mary Ann Haagen, Larry Polansky
reading the book, singing the songs,
& singing with the kids
in honor of the Ruth Crawford Seeger Centenary
performed on voices, guitar, mandolin, mandocello, dobro,
dulcimer, percussion, banjo, pennywhistle, and other instruments
Press Release for first
performance, describing the piece.
A written
introduction to the performance (not used with kids).
a nice discussion of this performance and Ruth Crawford Seeger's folksong
books for children in the Spring 2002 ISAM
Journal
List of Performances (including upcoming
performances)
2003
- Celebration
of Cultures Festival, Kingston, NY (sponsored by the Pauline Oliveros Foundation)
(joint concert with Shaker Singers)
- April
9: Two performances, joined by Peggy Seeger (who also performed "The Adventures
of Tom Thumb") at the Ray School, Hanover, New Hampshire, and at Mt. Lebanon
School, Lebanon, NH (both performances for the entire schools).
2002
February 2, Dartmouth
College, Hopkins Center, Hop Stop
2001
- June 30, Lebanon Library,
Children's Section, Lebanon, New Hampshire
- Sept. 8, Hanover Comunity
Foundation Benefit, Hanover, New Hampshire
- October 5, State Street
School, Windsor, VT., (thanks to Kate Woll)
- October 12, Marion Cross
School, Norwich, VT., (thanks to Leslie Dustin)
- October, 26-27, Ruth Crawford
Seeger Centenary Conference, Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn
College, NYC
- November 17, Lebanon Library
Children's Book Week, Lebanon, New Hampshire
About the performers
Jody Diamond is a composer, performer and
ethnomusicologist who has worked with gamelan
and Indonesian musics for close to 30 years.
One of her specialties has been using the gamelan ensemble
with children, teaching in many elementary schools and special programs,
and training teachers how to use this resource in innovative ways. She is
the Director and Founder of the American Gamelan Institute and faculty at
Dartmouth College, Franklin Pierce College, and teaches, lectures, and performs
internationally.
Mary Ann Haagen is a Dalcroze trained music
educator, who has taught in the New York and Vermont public schools for thirty
years. She is a leading expert on Shaker music
and its role in Shaker communal life. She directs the Enfield Shaker Singers, a vocal ensemble whose repertoire
includes the performance of19th century Shaker marches, dances and motioning
songs. She has been a frequent lecturer/performer on Shaker music and its
relationship to other American sacred and folk music traditions. She is presently
a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College.
Larry Polansky is a musician, composer, theorist
and American music scholar who has just finished an edition of Ruth Crawford
Seeger's monumental unpublished monograph The Music
of American Folk Song (1941). He is an active guitarist and mandolinist
in many forms of American music, and is on the music faculty at Dartmouth
College.
