Search Results

(b Romania, 1930; d Copenhagen, 4 April 2015). Romanian-Danish ethnochoreologist. She worked as a researcher at the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest from 1953 to 1979. She contributed to the foundation and development of scientific research on traditional dance in Romania, where she conducted extensive fieldwork, filming dances and rituals in over 200 villages. Her main interests concerned the contextual study of dance, the analysis of dance structure, the processes of dance improvisation, and dance as an identity marker for the Roma minority group. She also investigated the way traditional symbols were manipulated in Romania for national and political power legitimation.

After 1980 she lived in Denmark, where she conducted research on topics such as continuity and change in the traditional culture of the Vlachs (a Romanian speaking ethnic minority of Serbia) living in Denmark, the Romanian healing ritual căluş, and on the theory and methods of field research in contemporary society. She was the Honorary Chairperson of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology and the leader of the Sub-Study Group on Fieldwork Theory and Methods, a Board member of Danish National Committee for ICTM, and Doctor Honoris Causa of Roehampton University, London. She had a great number of publications and a fruitful activity as a lecturer on an international level. In her last years, she worked with Margaret Beissinger and Speranța Rădulescu on the volume ...

Member of Lomax family

(b Austin, Jan 21, 1921; d Portland, Nov 27, 2009). American folk music performer, scholar and arts administrator, daughter of John Lomax. She was introduced to folk music and music scholarship at an early age and was educated at the University of Texas (1937–8), Bryn Mawr College (BA 1941) and the University of California (MA 1970). From 1941 to 1952 she was a member of the Almanac Singers and participated in the recording of such albums as Talking Union, Citizen CIO, American Folk Songs and Songs of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. She continued her work in folk music after being appointed assistant professor of anthropology in 1963 at California State College, Northridge, where she rose to the rank of professor in 1974. In 1977 she became director of the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment of the Arts; she is credited with establishing folk arts programmes in virtually every state and territory of the USA by the time of her retirement in ...

Member of Lomax family

(b Austin, TX, Jan 15, 1915; d Sarasota, FL, July 19, 2002). American folksong scholar, son of John Lomax. He was educated at Harvard University (1932–3), the University of Texas (BA 1936) and Columbia University (where he did graduate work in anthropology in 1939). In 1937 he began working under his father in the Archive of American Folksong, Library of Congress. He worked for the Office of War Information and US Army Special Services during World War II, and served Decca Records Inc. as Director of Folk Music (1946–9). He produced numerous educational radio and television programmes on folk music for use in the USA and Great Britain (such as the ‘American Patchwork’ series produced for PBS, 1990) and recorded and studied folksong in Great Britain, Haiti, Italy, Spain, the USA and elsewhere. He served on the boards of several American folk festivals and lectured at various American universities (Chicago, Columbia, Indiana, New York). In ...

American family of musicians.

Seeger, Charles (Louis) (b Mexico City, Dec 14, 1886; d Bridgewater, CT, Feb 7, 1979)

Crawford (Seeger), Ruth (Porter) (b East Liverpool, OH, July 3, 1901; d Chevy Chase, MD, Nov 18, 1953)

Seeger, Pete(r R.) (b New York, May 3, 1919...

[Michael]

Member of Seeger family

(b New York, Aug 15, 1933; d Lexington, VA, Aug 7, 2009). American folksinger and instrumentalist, son of Charles Louis Seeger and Ruth Crawford. He received no formal instruction in music, but learned to play a number of folk instruments (including the fiddle, guitar, five-string banjo, autoharp, and jew's harp) from observing and imitating first other members of his family and then traditional musicians. Beginning in the early 1950s he sought to document folk music traditions of the mountains of the Southeast through field recordings and his own playing; he was responsible for the first recording of the guitarist and songwriter Elizabeth Cotten, and his own early recording of banjo playing in the style of Earl Scruggs is regarded as a classic in its field. With John Cohen and Tom Paley in 1958 he founded the New Lost City Ramblers, a pioneering traditional music group, and through it exerted a strong influence on the string-band revival that began in the 1960s; in ...

[Margaret]

Member of Seeger family

(b New York, June 17, 1935). American folksinger, song collector and songwriter, daughter of Charles (Louis) Seeger and Ruth Crawford. As a child she had formal training in both classical and folk music, and at Radcliffe College she studied music and began performing folksongs publicly. After studies and travels throughout Europe (1955–6) and China, she moved to Britain in 1956, becoming a British subject in 1959. As a solo performer and with her husband, Ewan MacColl [James Henry Miller] (b Auchterarder, Perthshire, 25 Jan 1915), she has helped lead the British folk music revival, extending traditional styles to modern media. Both separately and together they have performed in concerts, festivals and folk clubs, made many records and written music (for radio, films and television) and books.

Member of Seeger family

(b New York, May 3, 1919; d New York, Jan 27, 2014). American folksinger, banjo player and songwriter, son of Charles (Louis) Seeger. As a teenager he assisted the folksong collector J.A. Lomax, then joined the Alamanac Singers, so meeting Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays and others. During the early 1950s he recorded such hit records as Kisses Sweeter than Wine, Wimoweh and So long, it’s been good to know you with the vocal quartet the Weavers. Following his appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he was blacklisted by concert halls and broadcasters. In the 1960s Seeger further established his pivotal role in the American folk revival, promoting its ideals and, through concerts and recordings, encouraging others to sing and play. He founded the Newport Folk Festival, published tutors for the banjo and 12-string guitar and contributed regularly to the magazine Sing Out!...