TAUNY - News

TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) invites members of the community to attend the next folk instrument documentation event on Sunday, September 10 from 1:00- 3:30 pm at The North American Fiddlers’ Hall of Fame in Osceola, NY. This event will focus on the making and keeping of folk instruments (such as fiddles, guitars, and other instruments that are part of regional, community, or family musical traditions). This documentation day is one in a series of programs that are a part of TAUNY’s next research project and exhibit, “Instrumental Stories: North Country Folk Instrument Making and Collecting.” The North American Fiddlers’ Hall of Fame is located at 1121 Comins Rd., Osceola, NY.

Whether or not they play music themselves, many North Country residents connect to musical traditions through instruments. Over the coming months, in preparation for a spring 2018 exhibit, TAUNY is documenting makers, keepers, and collectors of folk instruments and the stories that go with those instruments, their creation, and their use. For this project, instrument-makers might include anyone from a professional luthier who supplies a whole community to someone who just wanted to try making an instrument and improvised one from materials on hand. Instruments people keep might be an uncle’s guitar, a piano their grandmother played for kitchen dances, or a classical instrument that was used to play in a folk tradition. The project also seeks to document the making and keeping of instrument accessories (such as cases and covers), as well as instrument repair resources.

Those interested in sharing their instruments for this documentation event should bring the instrument if possible (or a representative instrument if part of a collection) and be prepared to fill out a questionnaire about their instrument(s) and related stories. The form is also available online at www.tauny.org. Appointments during the documentation hours are encouraged. Documentation events will be led by Camilla Ammirati, TAUNY Director of Research and Programs. Please contact Camilla at camilla@tauny.org or 315-386-4289 to make an appointment, to ask any questions, or to let us know if you can’t attend a documentation event but have an instrument and story to share.

More information about this research project is available at www.tauny.org. Research will continue through December 2017.

This project is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TAUNY is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people understand and appreciate the folk traditions and local culture of everyday life—present and past—in the North Country. To do so, TAUNY seeks to research and preserve a record of diverse groups, customs and traditions; to recognize and empower traditional arts and artists; to identify and promote regional identity; and to provide opportunities for people of all ages to learn about folklore and culture. More information is available at tauny.org.

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Photos:

Dale Streeter of the Adirondack Playboys shows a guitar he made working with luthier Tracy Cox, 2016.

“Those instruments carry the stories with them, and of course, we’re interested in the people and the stories, ultimately, but the instruments are sometimes a way that people hold on to those things.” —Camilla Ammirati, TAUNY Director of Research and Programs

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