Join us for the opening program of the New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music exhibit in Centralia, Illinois.
The New Harmonies exhibition, provided by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Program and the Illinois Humanities Council, examines the on-going cultural process that has made America the birthplace of more music than any place on earth. The exhibition provides a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of multi-cultural exchange and offers communities an opportunity to celebrate their music traditions as they come to understand the origins of various roots music genres including; blues, country and western, gospel, jazz and folk.
The Opening Ceremony will feature Chris Vallillo, folk musician and Illinois State Scholar for this project.
The ceremony will feature a reception and a preview of the exhibition. Tickets can be had for $15. The doors to the exhibition will open one hour prior to the program.
New Harmonies will display from July 17, 2010 through August 28, 2010.
More on New Harmonies
The New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music exhibit is a cultural history of America’s Musical Landscape. It’s the story of a diverse mix of people interacting with the New World, a world where cultures and customs met, mixed, and mingled to create new sounds. The distinct cultural identities of all these peoples are carried in song – both sacred and secular – and the music that emerges is known by names like blues, country, western, folk, and gospel.
New Harmonies tracks the unique history of many peoples reshaping each other into one incredibly diverse and complex people – Americans. It also promises a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of cultural exchange with its multi-media components. As a unique traveling exhibition, it is full of surprises about familiar songs, histories of instruments, the roles of religion and technology in shaping new sounds, and the continuity of musical roots from the colonial period to modern day punk and hip-hop.
Art Center Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm; Saturday-Sunday, 1:00 – 4:00 pm.
For more information, please contact the Centralia Cultural Center at 618.532.2951.