AEBG-VII Call-for-Presentations (June 20-22, 2104)

[Greg Adams]

Dear Friends,

We are excited to announce that the Seventh Antietam Early Banjo Gathering (AEBG-VII) will take place on June 20-22, 2014. We invite those who are interested in delivering a formal presentation to submit a proposal to speak at this year’s conference. The deadline for submitting proposals will be April 18, 2014. Please forward proposals to Kyle Wichtendahl of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine (NMCWM) at [e-mail]. Proposals should include a name, contact information, presentation title, and abstract of no more than 500 words. 

For those who are not familiar with this event, the Antietam Early Banjo Gathering (also known as the Early American Banjo Conference) is the premier event for enthusiasts and scholars of early banjo music and culture. The conference raises awareness of the early banjo’s significance in the development of American popular music—beginning with the instrument’s African and African-American provenance, its popular appropriation on the minstrel stage by the mid-nineteenth century, and the legacy of that history since the American Civil War. The event is a unique forum for both experts and novices to meet and share knowledge, playing techniques, and research. Each year the conference brings together dozens of researchers, collectors, musicians, and instrument builders from across the nation to participate in workshops, jam sessions, and lectures. 

The gathering takes place in and around an 1840s threshing barn at the Pry House Field Hospital Museum on the Antietam National Battlefield (18906 Shepherdstown Pike, Keedysville, MD 21756), lending an appropriate setting and atmosphere that is both scholarly and casual.

For more information about the event, please visit our calendar page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/events/1374836276113682/). For specific questions about presentations and scheduling, please contact me (Greg Adams) and Kyle Wichtendahl ([e-mail]). 

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to seeing you in June.

Best regards,

Greg 

-- 

Greg C. Adams, 

Archivist (MLS), Ethnomusicologist (MA), Musician

 

MA Thesis (Ethnomusicology): 19th-Century Banjos in the 21st Century: Custom and Tradition in a ... 

 

Co-Curator for the 2014 Making Music: The Banjo in Baltimore and Beyond exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry 

 

Co-compiler/Co-annotator for Classic Banjo from Smithsonian Folkways 

Project Director, Banjo Sightings Database Project (Vernacular Music Material Culture in Space and Time): (NEH White Paper, BSD Blog)