Tusculum professor helping to preserve, promote Appalachian musical heritage

Tusculum College professor Katie Doman's summer plans involve the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., Appalachia, Scotland, and the African country of Mali.

The cultures of Appalachia, Scotland, and Mali will be featured during the 2003 Smithsonian Folklife Festival June 25-29 and July 2-6 along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and visitors to the music stages in the Appalachia area of the festival will find Doman introducing some of the artists.

The festival is the culmination of a project that is a labor of love for Doman – the preservation and promotion of traditional Appalachian music. "This is the most soul satisfying thing I am doing besides my teaching," says Doman, an assistant professor of English, of her latest project.

She is serving on the curatorial committee for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and is a co-chair of the music task force along with Tim Stafford, who was once a member of leading contemporary bluegrass artist Allison Krauss' band and now has his own band, Blue Highway.

As part of the "Year of Appalachia" project, Doman has been helping to collect recordings of traditional artists of this region. The recordings will be given to the Smithsonian to become part of its Folkways collection and copies will also be provided to the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University. Every effort is being made to include recordings from all ages, races, and genres in the collection, she said.

Collecting tapes, records and compact discs of artists ranging from bluegrass bands to storytellers, Doman says has been very enjoyable and given her the opportunity to meet people she has only known through their music. "It has been fun, and I have learned so much," she said. "Everybody we have contacted has been so enthusiastic about sending their recordings."

One of the people that Doman says she has had the privilege to work directly with is Jeff Place, who runs the Ralph Rinzier Folkways Archive at the Smithsonian. "When people hear someone interviewed on the news or NPR (National Public Radio) about folk music, it is usually Jeff Place," she added.

Concerts throughout the region have been held as part of the "Year of Appalachia," and have provided Doman additional opportunities to meet and learn from other musicians.

The regional aspect of the project is significant, Doman says. "One of the greatest things of all is that the effort is a truly a regional project," she said. "People are coming from all over to help." "Everyone also recognizes the fact that our most important audience is Appalachians themselves," Doman continued. "A lot of times, people who grow up here feel that other people may look down on them. But, we are trying to help people learn the truth about Appalachia and the good things that happen here."

Doman likens the project to another event that brought communities together - the effort involving 43 cities and towns in East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia that resulted in the Tri-Cities earning the National Civic League's All-America City designation in 1999. Doman was a member of the team that worked to earn the designation, the first given to a region, and she composed a song about the cooperation found in the area, which was a centerpiece of the presentation made to the NCL judges.

Modern Appalachia will be in the spotlight during the Folklife Festival as the musicians, artists, and artisans participating will illustrate how the old traditions and the new are being sustained today.

Live performance draws people to traditional Appalachian music, even those who might not choose to listen to a CD or a tape, Doman says, recalling an informal jam session with award-winning long-bow fiddler Ralph Blizard in a hotel that drew a crowd of people from a black-tie dinner also being held in the facility. "There were all those people in tuxedos and elegant dresses gathered around to hear Ralph play," she said.

"It's going to be interesting to see the different people play live," Doman said of the festival. "And the performers will not just be giving a show. They will be talking to people in the audience about their music. As a presenter, I will be helping to facilitate that discussion."

Doman is also looking forward to the "pickin' porch" to be set up at the festival. People will be able to join the performers on this stage for informal jam sessions.

Interaction between performers from the Appalachian region and those from Scotland and Mali will also be "a really big treat," she said. While the connections between Appalachian and Scottish culture are better known, there is also a link between our region and Mali through music, Doman said. This country is believed to be where the banjo originated as an instrument.

The Folklife Festival is the largest annual cultural event in the U.S. capital and receives considerable publicity, typically reaching 40 million readers and viewers through print and electronic media, according to the Smithsonian. Daily and evening programs of music, song, dance, celebratory performance, crafts and cooking demonstrations, storytelling, illustrations of workers' culture, and narrative sessions for discussing cultural issues are all part of the festival. Visitors are encouraged to participate, to learn, sing, dance, eat traditional foods, and converse with people presented in the festival program.

The festival began in 1967, and has become a national and international model of a research-based presentation of contemporary living cultural traditions. Since its inception, it has brought more than 16,000 musicians, artists, performers, craftspeople, workers, cooks, storytellers and others to the National Mall and has featured exemplary tradition bearers from 54 nations, every region of the United States, scores of ethnic communities, more than 100 American Indian groups, and some 50 occupations, according to the Smithsonian.