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The American Folklife Center, in cooperation with the Association for Cultural Equity, will present a symposium, “The Lomax Legacy: Folklore in a Globalizing Century,” from January 18 to 20, 2006, at the Library of Congress. For two days, a diverse group of scholars, cultural workers, and media producers will gather to reflect on the life work of the preeminent song collector, musical anthropologist, and cultural activist Alan Lomax (1915-2002). The symposium will consist of panel presentations, film screenings, and an evening concert.
Participants will discuss their own research, publications, productions and advocacy work in light of Lomax’s pioneering initiatives in these same areas.
The gathering highlights the AFC’s 2004 acquisition of the Alan Lomax Collection, his legacy of recordings, research and writing—-a multimedia archive of musical performances from around the world.
The two-day event will be open to the public, free of charge, but seating is limited and reservations are required. Reservations for no more than two seats per registrant will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. For general information, registration, program details and locations of events, please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/lomax/lomaxlegacy.html
Also visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/lomax for additional details on the collection.
Alan Lomax began his career at the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folk Song (the predecessor to the American Folklife Center) in 1933. Between 1933 and 1942, Alan Lomax and his father, folklorist John A. Lomax, helped develop the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folksong into a major repository of traditional music. Many of the early recordings held by the Center are the products of their celebrated field trips to document folk music and oral history across much of the United States and Alan Lomax's subsequent trips to the Caribbean and Europe.
After he left the Library of Congress in 1942, Alan Lomax continued his work to document, analyze and present the traditional music, dance and narratives of cultural communities around the world. He expanded the scope of his work to include ethnomusicological and anthropological research and teaching, book publishing for scholarly and popular audiences, and commercial record, radio and film production. He was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1980 National Book Critics Circle award for “The Land Where the Blues Began,” the National Medal of the Arts in 1986, a “Living Legend” award from the Library of Congress in 2000 and a Grammy in 2002 for his lifelong contributions to music.
Media contacts: Trish Taylor Shuman (202) 707-1940; Joanne Rasi (202) 707-1744
Public contact: (202) 707-5510
Web site: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/
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