CPM Programs

2013

CPM Partners with Arts Center of Cannon County to Produce MusicSprings - Southern Music Sources

The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, is proud to partner with The Arts Center of Cannon County (ACCC) in the production of MusicSprings - Southern Music Sources, a series of exclusive educational webisodes.

"A Singing Family"

"Step Right Up"

"Childish Distractions

"Rally Cry"

"The Merry Cuckold

"Nobody Knows Where The Blues Come From

"Pretty Fair Maid: A Southern Immigrant"

"Weems String Band"

"School Singers"

"The Maid Freed From The Gallows"

"Shave & a Haircut, Two Bits"

"Moving to the Country: The Guitar in America"

"Ring the Banjo"

"America's Favorite Hymn"

"Happy Birthday"

"21st Century Bard"

"Carved out of the Cumberlands"

"Mr. Edison's Machine"

"Go 'long Mule"

"That Lonesome Whistle"

"Monkey Music"

"Fishing With Worms"

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A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts provided funding for a MusicSprings - Southern Music Sources. Project partners include: The Arts Center of Cannon County, Spring Fed Records, Center for Popular Music, MTSU's Department of Electronic Media Communications, DTC Communications, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

"The MusicSprings webisodes are an effort to raise awareness of the roots of American Folk Music through visual and musical content" says Evan Hatch, ACCC Folklorist and producer for Spring Fed Records.

The complete press release for MusicSprings - Southern Music Sources is available at:
http://app.streamsend.com/ss/1/KCRD/zyvfiayufj.

For more information on The Arts Center of Cannon County and Spring Fed Records, please visit www.artscenterofcc.com.
 

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America's Music: A Festival of America's Great Popular Music
A Six-Week "Celebration of America's Music"

The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, in partnership with Linebaugh Public Library and the City of Murfreesboro, presents a six-week "Celebration of America's Music" program.

The series will feature documentary film screenings, scholar-led discussions and concerts by local musicians of 20th-century American popular music.

Films	Concerts
March 21 — Linebaugh Public Library, 4-6 p.m. Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues,    Episode 1: Feel Like Going Home and Say Amen, Somebody	March 22 — Murfreesboro City Hall Rotunda, 5-6 p.m. Olive Branch Baptist Church Choir Chris Smith, Director
March 28 — Linebaugh Public Library, 4-6 p.m. Broadway: The American Musical,     Episode 2: Syncopated City (1919-1933)	March 29 — Linebaugh Public Library, Reading Room, 4-5 p.m. The cast of Jesus Christ Superstar Center for the Arts, Murfreesboro
April 4 — Linebaugh Public Library, 4-6 p.m. Ken Burns Jazz,     Episode 6: The Velocity of Celebration and The International Sweethearts of Rhythm	April 5 — Murfreesboro City Hall Rotunda, 5-6 p.m. MTSU Jazz Combo Don Aliquo, Director
April 11 — Linebaugh Public Library, 4-6 p.m. High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music	April 12 — Murfreesboro City Hall Rotunda, 5-6 p.m. Sweet Fancy Moses and Bradford Lee Folk and the Bluegrass Playboys
April 18 — Linebaugh Public Library, 4-6 p.m. The History of Rock 'n' Roll,    Episode 6: Plugging In	April 19 — Murfreesboro City Hall Plaza, 5-6 p.m. 2nd and Vine
April 25 — Linebaugh Public Library, 4-6 p.m. Latin Music USA,    Episode 1: Bridges and From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale	April 26 — Murfreesboro City Hall Plaza, 5-6 p.m. Amerigo Gazaway (and B-boys)

"America's Music" seeks to enlighten and entertain audiences with images, thoughts and sounds on America's great music. Musical genres covered include blues and gospel, Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, swing jazz, bluegrass, rock 'n' roll and rock, mambo and hip hop.

Murfreesboro's celebration is one of 50 sites nationwide selected to host this program series. "America's Music" is a project by the Tribeca Film Institute in collaboration with the American Library Association, Tribeca Flashpoint and the Society for American Music. It has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"America's Music," designed for a general audience, will introduce genres of 20th-century American popular music that are deeply connected to the history, culture and geography of the United States. Older and younger Americans alike will have the chance to recognize how the cultural landscape that they take for granted today has been influenced by the development of the popular musical forms discussed in this series.

Starting on March 21, Linebaugh Library will host weekly, free film viewings on popular music, followed by a discussion led by Dr. Felicia Miyakawa of MTSU's School of Music. The Friday following each Thursday film viewing will feature a concert by local musicians performing in the style covered the day before. Among the performers lined up are The Olive Branch Church Choir, the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar, two bluegrass/old-time bands (Sweet Fancy Moses and Bradford Lee Folk and the Bluegrass Playboys), the MTSU Jazz Combo, DJ Amerigo Gazaway (and B-boys), and 2nd and Vine (an MTSU faculty rock band).

For additional information, please visit our local Facebook page, the Center's America's Music website (http://popmusic.mtsu.edu/AmericasMusic/index.html), or contact the Center for Popular Music at 615.898.2449 or [email protected].
 

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Music from the Life of First Lady Sarah Childress Polk (1803-1891)
A pair of concerts featuring vocalist Amy Jarman, pianist Ben Harris, and the Harpeth Valley Sacred Harp Singers
Sunday, February 10, 2013 – 2:00 p.m. – First Presbyterian Church, Murfreesboro, TN
Sunday, February 17, 2013 – 2:00 p.m. – First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, TN

Concerts in Murfreesboro and Columbia will celebrate the musical life of First Lady Sarah Childress Polk, a native of Rutherford County and wife of eleventh President of the United States James K. Polk from Columbia.

The Murfreesboro concert will be at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 10th in the First Presbyterian Church, the congregation to which Sarah belonged. The Columbia concert will be held on Sunday, the 17th of February, at 2:00 p.m. in the Columbia First Presbyterian Church.

Primary sponsors for these concerts are the James K. Polk Ancestral Home in Columbia and the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Musical selections for these concerts are from a handwritten songbook compiled by thirteen-year-old Sarah Childress when she was a student at the Moravian Academy in Salem, North Carolina, in 1818. The period music will include such titles as "Blue Eyed Mary," "Dulce Donum," "Hail Columbia," and ironically "Hail to the Chief."

Performing pieces from Sarah's songbook are vocalist Amy Jarman and pianist Ben Harris. Ms. Jarman, a member of the voice faculty at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, has been a featured soloist in many concerts and performed in many operatic roles both here and abroad. Mr. Harris, who has studied and performed throughout the United States and Europe, is the vocal coach at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University.

The concerts also include hymns favored by Sarah and performed by members of the Harpeth Valley Sacred Harp Singers, a group that gathers to sing shape-note music throughout the Southeast. The ensemble is under the direction of Tim Reynolds.

The concerts are presented in conjunction with the Polk Home's current exhibit Sarah Polk, First Lady of Style, which features over fifty original belongings of Mrs. Polk including her handwritten songbook and fashion items from her White House years.

These entertaining and educational concerts are free and open to the public.

For more information please contact the Center for Popular Music (615-898-2449) or the James K. Polk Ancestral Home (931-388-2354).
 

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2012

"How Leonard Bernstein Invented Hip-Hop: Popular Culture, Genre Boundaries, and the Mythologies of Hip-Hop Scholarship" — A lecture by Dr. Joseph Schloss — Thursday, September 6, 2012 – 4:30 p.m. – Room S260 Business and Aerospace Building

Dr. Joseph Schloss is the New York-based author of two authoritative works on hip-hop music: Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (Oxford University Press: 2009), and Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop (Wesleyan University Press: 2004), which won the 2005 Book Prize from the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. He is also the co-author of Rock: Music, Culture, and Business (Oxford University Press, 2012), with Christopher Waterman and Larry Starr. Dr. Schloss is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Black and Latino Studies and Sociology at City University of New York, and a Visiting Scholar in Music at New York University.

High critical praise has greeted Dr. Schloss' work. The Boston Globe said of Foundation that it was "the best work ever produced on b-boying. . . . Schloss's insights are wide-ranging and consistently illuminating." The Journal of Popular Music Studies reviewed Making Beats and noted that "Schloss's consistent emphasis on artistic agency, musical processes, and individual compositional proclivities make this an important study for fans, scholars, critics, and anyone who needs convincing that hip-hop music, is, in fact, music."

The Center for Popular Music co-sponsored Dr. Schloss' lecture with the School of Music and the Department of Anthropology. For further information, contact the Center for Popular Music at 615.898.2449 or [email protected]  

Pa's Fiddle: America's Music — Broadcast on Npt — Sunday, June 3, 2012 – 7:00-8:30 p.m. (CDT) and Monday, June 4, 2012 – 11:01 p.m. (CDT)

Pa's Fiddle: America's Music is set for broadcast on NPT, Nashville's independent nonprofit PBS station, during the station's annual summer pledge drive. Artists performing on the program include award-winning musician and musical director Randy Scruggs and an all-star string band, Randy Travis, Rodney Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ashton Shepherd, The Roys, Natalie Grant, and Committed (NBC Sing Off Champions).

Check the listings of your local PBS affiliate for broadcast times in your area. For more information on the program, contact [email protected].

Be sure to make a pledge in support of your local public television station during the broadcast!
 

Pa's Fiddle Band on Music City Roots — Live performance and broadcast — Wednesday, May 9, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. – The Loveless Barn, 8400 Highway 100, Nashville, TN

Dale Cockrell, the Pa's Fiddle Project, and the Pa's Fiddle Band were featured on Music City Roots, the weekly concert and live radio show broadcast from the Loveless Barn in Nashville, TN. The Pa's Fiddle Band played a set featuring tunes from the new album, Pa's Fiddle: Charles Ingalls, American Fiddler (which will be released on 5 June, 2012), and Cockrell, CPM's Director and President of Pa's Fiddle Recordings, talked about the Pa's Fiddle project.

Members of the Pa's Fiddle Band are: Matt Combs, violin Pat Enright, guitar and vocal Matt Flinner, mandolin Shad Cobb, banjo & fiddle Dennis Crouch, bass Jeff Taylor, concertina and Irish flute.	The set: Polly Put the Kettle On Jesus Holds My Hand The Campbells Are Coming/Haste to the Weddings The Girl I Left Behind Me Yellow Heifer Jesus Holds My Hand (rag reprise)
The Pa's Fiddle Band set begins at 01:36:45. Dale Cockrell's interview is at 01:57:52.

 

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"Tracing Tennessee's Musical Roots" : Baroque Fiddling Project II — Concert by Music City Baroque — Monday, April 16, 2012 – 7:30 p.m. – The Loveless Barn, 8400 Highway 100, Nashville, TN

Music City Baroque offers a continuing exploration of popular classical and fiddle music and dance from the birth of our country to the pre-Civil War era. Works celebrate such historical figures as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, General Marquis de Lafayette, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and Ole Bull, as well as one of Nashville's most celebrated composers of the early 19thcentury in the fiddling Mecca of the Loveless Barn.

Did you ever wonder what the difference is between a violin and a fiddle, or wonder how deep "roots music" actually goes? Then you need to join Music City Baroque as it journeys back in time with "Tracing Tennessee's Music Roots" at the Loveless Barn on Monday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. Building on its 2010 first foray into the relationship between fiddling and Baroque violin playing with the Baroque Fiddling Project I, the ensemble of fiddlers/violinists and other assorted instrumentalists will play music from the time of Jefferson, Franklin, and King George III to the popular tunes of the 1840s. Joining the ensemble will be eight dancers who will demonstrate popular reels, quicksteps, jigs and minuets set to fiddle tunes. Presiding over the show will be Will Griffin, who will help narrate the story of the passage of fiddling from Colonial days through the brink of the Civil War.

The Baroque Fiddling Project, first presented in 2010, was recognized as "Best Classical-Folk Collision" in Nashville Scene Best of Nashville 2010. The Fiddling Project was also recognized with a four-page story in Early Music America (Winter 2011).

Background research and composition of "Tracing Tennessee's Musical Roots" was undertaken by Music City Baroque members Laura Ross, violinist and a member of the Nashville Symphony, and Tammy Rogers King, fiddler/violinist, faculty member at Belmont University, and fiddler alongside such artists as Reba McEntire, Wynonna and Emmy Lou Harris. Offering advice and guidance was fiddling authority Dr. Dale Cockrell, director of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, one of the outstanding archives of popular music in the nation.

The Baroque Fiddling Project II: "Tracing Tennessee's Musical Roots" is supported by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and by Music City Baroque supporters.

Members of the Music City Baroque are: Tammy Rogers King, fiddle/violin Laura Ross, fiddle/violin Karen Clarke, fiddle/violin Rebecca Cole, fiddle/violin Chris Stenstrom, cello Murray Somerville, harpsichord Francis Perry, guitar and theorbo Terri Richter, soprano Bill Wiggins, drums Dennis Crouch, bass Will Griffin, narrator AnnaGee Harris, production.

this is a spacer to take up space The Campbells Are Coming/Haste to the Weddings

Tickets are $15 in advance, available online at www.muscicitybaroque.org, and $18 at the door. For further information, contact George Riordan at 850.264.9293 or [email protected]  

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2011

"Playing To An Empty Room: Performance, Recording, and Musicology"
A lecture by Dr. Simon Zagorski-Thomas — Tuesday, December 6, 2011 – 4:30 p.m. – Center for Popular Music (140 Mass Communication Building)

Musicology has traditionally addressed "the score" as its primary text, but this not only marginalizes many forms of music it also ignores the issues of performance and interpretation and the fact that recorded music has become our primary form of listening and engagement. This lecture looks at how the recording process has affected and is in turn affected by performance. What means have performers and producers developed for performing without an audience, for the collaborative process of editing and negotiating the way that this process has affected decision making, and for even the "ownership" of a performance?

Dr. Zagorski-Thomas is a highly regarded expert on the art and implications of recording technology. He is a Senior Lecturer in Music Technology at the London College of Music, University of West London. Dr. Zagorski-Thomas is also Chair of the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production and the Director of the Art of Record Production Conference.

The Center for Popular Music is co-sponsoring Dr. Zagorski-Thomas' lecture with the Department of Recording Industry and the School of Music. For further information, contact Dale Cockrell, Director of the Center for Popular Music, 615.898.2449 or [email protected]  

"Harmony and Discord: Music of the Civil War,"
National Folk Festival, Nashville, TN — September 2-4, 2011
Music was a powerful force during the Civil War: both North and South used music as a call to arms, expressing ideals, commemorating leaders, adding levity, and providing solace. Certain songs are forever linked with one side or the other, as they provided a way for people to define themselves and create sectional enthusiasm and pride. Among the North's great patriotic rallying songs were Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and George F. Root's "Battle Cry of Freedom," while the South countered with Dan Emmett's "Dixie's Land" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag," the "national anthem of the Confederacy." These and hundreds of other war-related songs were heard in parlors, in concert halls, at rallies, in camp, and on battlefields. Singing of glory and pain, hope and despair, longing and triumph, this music constitutes a cultural heritage that resonates yet today. The music publishing industry matured during the war years, leaving a rich record of sheet music, songsters, broadsides, and song books. This exhibit will compare and contrast popular music of the North and South during the war, with a special focus on how the conflict in Tennessee was expressed in song.  

"Edison Cylinders: Music for the Masses,"
National Folk Festival, Nashville, TN — September 2-4, 2011
What would your voice have sounded like on a cylinder recording made 110 years ago? Come meet Martin Fisher, Audio Archivist for the Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University, to find out. Martin will record you – talking, singing ¬or whatever you like ¬– on a vintage Edison cylinder phonograph and play it back for you to hear, as you learn first-hand how early recordings were made. The basis for all recorded music we listen to today began with Thomas Alva Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877. Edison's original invention allowed its user to both record and playback sound from a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a cylindrical drum. The phonograph (literally sound writing) utilized a stylus attached to a diaphragm, which indented sound vibrations into the tinfoil. In 1888 Edison greatly improved the process, replacing the fragile, short-lived tinfoil media with a more durable tapered bore cylinder made of a wax-like metallic soap compound. The stylus now incised the cylinder's surface, creating a groove with sound vibrations on the bottom. The cylinder flourished until around 1915, when it began to be replaced by the flat disc record.  

Karrierekanonen and Danish Rock: Cultural Politics, Global Markets, and Artistic Expressiveness; a lecture by Leslie C. Gay, Jr., Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Tennessee-Knoxville — Thursday, April 7, 2011, 4:30 p.m., Center for Popular Music Reading Room
Danish popular music has long been shaped by global influences, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom. Indeed, many contemporary Danish rock musicians compose and perform in English. One response to this is Karrierekanonen,a joint project between the Ministry of Culture's Rock Council and Dansk Radio that aims to promote Danish-language rock against a tide of English-language media. Associations with language are conflicted and conflated within new frames of Danish identity, especially in regards to the use of language as a defining characteristic of genre, as a symbol of national identity, or as a communication tool of global markets. Projects such as Karrierekanonen represent one direction in which songwriters seek to claim their native tongue, often through a process of translation that leads to new artistic expressiveness.  

"Global Discourses in Women's and Gender Studies"; ninth biennial conference organized by the Women's and Gender Studies Program at MTSU — March 24-26, 2011
The conference theme reflects our interest in promoting feminist perspectives that foreground the influence of global forces on women's and/or gendered existence and in examining connections between local/national and global issues that relate to women's and/or gendered existence. Several panels will deal with music, with one focusing on Cajun music. The conference website is located at http://www.mtsu.edu/womenstu/conference/index.php. The Center for Popular Music is co-sponsoring this conference.  

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2010

Bakari Kitwana: "New Muslim Cool"—panel discussion, documentary viewing, townhall — November 10, 2010
Panel discussion and viewing of the documentary "The New Muslim Cool," co-sponsored by the Center for Popular Music, the MTSU Department of History, the Office of Intercultural and Diversity Affairs, the MTSU School of Music and Student Programming.  

Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon: Lecture, Documentary Viewing, Dance Class — September 7, 2010
Hip-hop dancer, choreographer, activist and historian Jorge "PopMaster Fabel" Pabon screens part of his new documentary, "Apache Line: From Gangs to Hip-Hop," in the State Farm Lecture Hall, Room S102, of MTSU's Business and Aerospace Building. In addition to the documentary viewing, Pabon will speak to Miyakawa's "Hip-Hop Music and Culture" class and will lead a B-Boy/B-girl workshop during his time on campus. Video of Pabon in action is available at http://bit.ly/Pabon1 and http://bit.ly/Pabon2. Pabon's visit to MTSU is sponsored by the Distinguished Lecture Fund, the MTSU School of Music, the Center for Popular Music, and the Department of Recording Industry.  

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2009
"Freedom Sings" Exhibit — September 16-17, 2009
Exhibit of materials featured in Freedom Sings™, a multimedia experience featuring music that has been banned, censored or sounded a call for social change. (In conjunction with Constitution Day Activities sponsored by the MTSU College of Mass Communication's Seigenthaler Chair)

AfroFlow Tour — April 14, 2009
Concert headlined by Michael "MIKE-E" Ellison (In partnership with MTSU's Department of Recording Industry)

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2008
"Honky Tonk" — September 2 - October 16, 2008
Photography exhibit by Henry Horenstein (In partnership with the Baldwin Photographic Gallery at MTSU)

"Farther Along": A Conference on the Southern Gospel Convention-Singing Tradition — April 4-5, 2008
The first academic conference devoted to the Southern Gospel Convention-Singing tradition.

The Brock McGuire Band — February 25, 2008
Afternoon Lecture: "Irish Traditional Music in America – The Golden Era" and
Evening Concert featuring The Brock McGuire Band

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2007
American Music Month — November 2007
Exhibit showcasing the diversity of materials in the Center's collections (In partnership with Walker Library at MTSU)

"Music of the Civil War: Harmony and Discord" — October 2007 - May 2008
Exhibit, at Stones River National Battlefield, exploring the role of music in the Civil War (In partnership with the National Park Service and Stones River National Battlefield)

"Music of the Civil War: Reunions and Remembrance" — January - April 2007
Exhibit, at Stones River National Battlefield, exploring the role of music in the Civil War (In partnership with the National Park Service and Stones River National Battlefield)

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2006
"Music of the Civil War: Songs for the Crisis" — June - September 2006
Exhibit, at Stones River National Battlefield, exploring the role of music in the Civil War (In partnership with the National Park Service and Stones River National Battlefield)

KRS-One Hip-hop Lecture — April 2006
Hip-hop Lecture, presented by MC Lawrence Parker, better known as KRS-One (In partnership with Dr. Felicia Miyakawa, MTSU School of Music)

Dr. Charles K. Wolfe Memorial — February 2006
Memorial celebration for Dr. Charles K. Wolfe, Professor Emeritus of the MTSU English Department and one of the planners of the Center (In partnership with MTSU College of Liberal Arts)

"Music of the Civil War: The Local Connection" — January - March 2006
Exhibit, at Stones River National Battlefield, exploring the role of music in the Civil War (In partnership with the National Park Service and Stones River National Battlefield)

"From Studios to Stages: Images of American Music Makers" — January 2006
Photo exhibit, in Baldwin Photographic Gallery at MTSU, consisting of photographs drawn from the Center for Popular Music's collections

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2005
"Perspectives on Popular Music" — Spring 2005
Series of faculty lectures (In collaboration with the University Honors College)

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2004
"Music from True Vine: Traditional Music from the Rural South" — March 5, 2004
Lecture/performances and Concert featuring Mike Seeger (In partnership with the McLean School of Music at MTSU)

"There is no Eye" — February 5, 2004
Photography exhibit by John Cohen
Artist's lecture, short musical program, and film screening of "The High and Lonesome Sound" (In partnership with the Baldwin Photographic Gallery at MTSU)

"Perspectives on Popular Music" — Spring 2004
Series of faculty lectures

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2003
"Music in the Life of Sarah Childress Polk" — September 2003
Two concerts and a commemorative booklet to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sarah Childress Polk, wife of President James K. Polk (In partnership with MTSU's Center for Historic Preservation and the Polk Ancestral Home)

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2002
"Music at Mid-Week: A Multi-Disciplinary Series" — Spring 2002
Weekly Lecture Series

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2001
"Freedom's Journey: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." — January 12, 2001
Workshop and performance by the Princely Players (In partnership with Murfreesboro/Rutherford County Center for the Arts)

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1999
"Hymn Books to Hit Songs: 150 Years of the Tennessee Music Business" — October 1999
Exhibit of rare and historic Tennessee music imprints from the collections of the Center for Popular Music (In partnership with University Library, MTSU)

1999 SEMLA Annual Meeting — October 1999
Host institution for the annual conference of the Southeast Chapter of the Music Library Association (SEMLA)

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1998
64th Annual Meeting of the Tennessee Folklore Society — November 1998
Host Institution for the annual meeting of the Tennessee Folklore Society

"Heart of Tennessee Scottish Celebration" — October 1998
Lecture by ethnomusicologist Kate Dunlay and Concert featuring the Toronto-based ensemble, Puirt a Baroque (In partnership with the MTSU Concert Series)

"Legends of American Music" — February 1988
Ceremony to mark the opening of a special exhibit of artwork from the United States Postal Service's "Legends of American Music" series of stamps (In partnership with Dr. Robert Rucker of the MTSU Sociology Department and the university's African-American History Committee)

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1997
"Chulrua: Irish Traditional Music and Song" — October 1997
Reprise of October 1996 concert (In partnership with the Murfreesboro/Rutherford County Center for the Arts)

"Chasing the Wind: Studying Popular Music" — April 17, 1997
Lecture by Charles Hamm, Professor Emeritus of Music at Dartmouth College (In partnership with the MTSU Department of Music)

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1996
"Chulrua: Irish Traditional Music and Song" — October 15, 1996
Concert, workshop, and lecture featuring the members of Chulrua, Paddy O'Brien (two-row button accordion), Michael Cooney (uilleann pipes and tin whistle), and Pat Egan (singer/guitarist)

"Crossroads: Intersections in American Vernacular Music" — April 18-20, 1996
A conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Center for Popular Music

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1995
A Decade of Excellence — December 1995
First Ten Years of the Centers of Excellence Program (Tennessee Board of Regents)

Tennessee Blues — August 22, 1995
Howse, Pearson, Dowling, The Nationals (In partnership with MTSU Honors Program, Student Programming, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, and the Tennessee Folklore Society)

"Fingerstyle Guitar: 150 Years of Musical Tradition and Innovation" — February 17, 1995
Seminar and concert (In partnership with the MTSU Music Department)

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1994
"Song Slam II: Murfreesboro Unplugged" — April 19, 1994
Honors Lyceum, featuring live performances by unsigned songwriters (In partnership with the MTSU Honors Program, the Student Programming Fine Arts Committee, and the Tennessee Folklore Society)

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1993
"2nd Annual Celebration in Song" — December 7, 1993
Concert featuring performances by James Bryan (fiddle), Bruce Nemerov and Paul Wells (Center for Popular Music), and the Riverdale Gospel Ensemble (In partnership with the Murfreesboro Parks and Recreation Department)

"Cajun Music and Zydeco" — November 15, 1993
Cajun Music Festival centered around a gallery exhibition of the photographs of Cajun musicians taken by Philip Gould; featured lectures by Gould and by Cajun musician and music historian Ann Savoy; concluded with a traditional-style Cajun dance with the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band of Eunice, Louisiana (In partnership with MTSU Fine Arts and MTSU Photographic Gallery)

"Song Slam: Murfreesboro Unplugged" — October 20, 1993
Honors Lyceum, featuring live performances by unsigned songwriters (In partnership with the MTSU Honors Program, the Student Programming Fine Arts Committee, and the Tennessee Folklore Society)

"Jazz and the Search for Artistic Freedom in Cuba" — March 24, 1993
Lecture by jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval; component in the "MTSU Swing Into Jazz Festival" (Sponsored jointly by the Center, MTSU Music Department, MTSU Concerts, and the MTSU Student Chapter of the International Association of Jazz Educators)

"String Instruments in Southeast Africa: Typology and Playing Techniques" — March 4, 1993
Lecture/demonstration by Prof. Gerhard Kubik, Institut für Vöklerkunde, University of Vienna, and Moya Aliya Malamusi, Director, Oral Literature Research Program, Chileka, Malawi

"Blues from Murfreesboro" — February 3, 1993
Reprise of September 1992 program in the MTSU celebration of African-American History Month; Honors Lyceum, featuring live performances by William Richardson (piano), William Howse (harp/vocals), and Jack Pearson (guitar/slide) (In partnership with MTSU Honors Program and the Tennessee Folklore Society)

"Kickin' Butt with Sir Mix-a-Lot: Rap Music and the Use of Racial and Sexual Stereotypes" — January 26, 1993
Lecture/discussion by Dr. Harry M. Williams, Department of History, Carleton College (In partnership with the MTSU African-American Studies Program)

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1992
"A Celebration in Song": Commemorating the 130th Anniversary of the Battle of Stones River and the Emancipation Act — December 22, 1992
Concert featuring performances by James Bryan (Mentone, AL), the Princely Players (Nashville), and the Noted Four (Murfreesboro) (Co-sponsor, along with the Murfreesboro Parks and Recreation Department, Let's Communicate, and Friends of the Stones River Battlefield)

"An Australian Rock Sound? The Evolution of Australian Music Since the Late 1970's" — November 12, 1992
Lecture by Jon Fitzgerald, Centre for Contemporary Music, University of New England, Northern Rivers, Lismore, Australia

"Interpreting Our Past: 19th Century Musical Pleasures and Pastimes" — September 11, 1992
Workshop (In partnership with Historic Travellers Rest, Nashville)

"Blues from Murfreesboro" — September 2, 1992
Honors Lyceum, featuring live performances by William Richardson (piano), William Howse (harp/vocals), and Jack Pearson (guitar/slide) (In partnership with MTSU Honors Program and the Tennessee Folklore Society)

Four Eagle Gospel Singers of Birmingham, Alabama — February 1992
Concert (In partnership with the MTSU Office of Minority Affairs)

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1991
The Civil War Music Collector's Edition Album Release — October 17, 1991
Public ceremony to mark the release of The Civil War Music Collector's Edition three-CD set produced for Time-Life Music

DeFord Bailey State Historical Marker Dedication ceremony — May 15, 1991
(In partnership with the Tennessee Historical Commission and the Tennessee Folklore Society)

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1990
"The Changing Role of the Banjo in Contemporary Bluegrass Music" — November 3, 1990
Lecture by Neil Rosenberg, Memorial University of Newfoundland Tennessee Banjo Institute at Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Lebanon, TN

"Singing in Two Worlds" — October 2, 1990
"Singing in Two Worlds: A Seminar on Vocal Harmony Traditions in Southern Africa and the American South" — October 2, 1990
Seminar and concert featuring Ladysmith Black Mambazo, The Birmingham Sunlights, and The Princely Players (In partnership with MTSU Student Programming's Special Events Committee)

"A Forum with Stanley Jordan" — April 23, 1990
Lecture (In partnership with the MTSU Recording Industry Management Department)

"Musicianers and Songsters: A Seminar on Black Music in the South" — February 27, 1990
Seminar on African-American music in the South

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1989
"The Folksong Revival and Its Impact on American Popular Music" — November 13, 1989
Lecture by Norm Cohen, Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology, UCLA

The 15th National Conference — April 5-9, 1989
Host Institution for the annual conference of the Sonneck Society for American Music

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1988
"Music for an Old-Fashioned Christmas" — December 4, 1988
Performance with brief historical program notes givern at Oaklands Historic House Museum

Tennessee Banjo Institute — November 10-12, 1988
CPM sponsored lectures, Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Lebanon, Tennessee, by Thomas Adler of Lexington, KY and Robert Winans of Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA (In partnership with the Tennessee Department of Parks & Recreation)

"Duke Ellington as a Major American Composer" — September 28, 1988
Lecture by Martin Williams, Smithsonian Institution

"Why Study Jazz History?" — September 27, 1988
Lecture by Martin Williams, Smithsonian Institution. Oaklands Historic House Museum

"Remembering Duke Ellington" — September 27, 1988
Martin Williams, Smithsonian Institution, Guest appearance with former Ellington producer Brad McCuen in one-hour interview/music radio program on WMOT-FM

"Blues in Retrospect" — April 18, 1988
Lecture by British blues scholar Paul Oliver, University of Exeter, Exeter, England

"Women in American Musical Life" — March 12, 1988
Symposium celebrating the varied contributions of women to the shaping of music in America

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1987
"Music for an Old-Fashioned Christmas" — December 6, 1987
Performance with brief historical program notes, Oaklands Historic House Museum

"Tennessee Strings: The Early Years" — December 1987
Theatrical Production based on the book by Charles Wolfe (In partnership with The Cumberland County Playhouse and MTSU Special Events & Public Service Committees)

"The Influence of Blues and Black Gospel Music on Mainstream Popular Music" — November 1987
Lecture by Christopher Lornell, Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum College, Ferrum, Virginia

"Popular Music of the Civil War Era" — August 1987
Lecture and Performance (In partnership with Stones River National Battlefield)

"It's a Whole New Ball Game: The Impact of Changing Technology on Archives" — April 9-10, 1987
Host institution for the Tennessee Archivists Spring Meeting

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1986
52nd Annual Meeting of the Tennessee Folklore Society — November 8, 1986
Co-host of the annual meeting of the Tennessee Folklore Society (In partnership with MTSU English Department)

"It's Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song": Conversations with Hazel Dickens — November 6-7, 1986
Workshop and Concert (In partnership with MTSU Student Programming)

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