New Harmonies is the sixth exhibition in an ongoing partnership between state humanities councils and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The partnership is known as Museum on Main Street, and it serves rural communities. Through a selection of photographs, recordings, instruments, lyrics and artist profiles, New Harmonies explores the distinct cultural identities of Gospel, Country, Blues and other forms of roots music as they record the history of the American people and set the foundation for many musical genres appreciated worldwide today. The Missouri Humanities Council will host the state’s exclusive tour of New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music beginning in March, 2009. The exhibition will travel to six Missouri communities throughout the year.
Matt Meacham and Ed McKinney (right) of Sunny Side
Up
playing
at the Old-Time Music and Ozark
Heritage
Festival
in West
Plains
The selected towns are:
- Charleston (Mississippi County Historical Society)
- Forsyth (White River Valley Historical Society)
- Kirksville (Kirksville Arts Association)
- Osceola (St. Clair County Historical Society Museum and Research Library)
- Vandalia (Vandalia Area Historical Society)
- Warrensburg (Johnson County Historical Society)
Matt Meacham Signs On to Advise "New Harmonies Towns"
Matt is a folklorist with the West Plains Council on the Arts. He came to West Plains in February 2007 from southern West Virginia, where he conducted a one-year study of that region’s musical life for the West Virginia Humanities Council in preparation for the possible establishment of a regional music interpretive center there.
Since moving to West Plains, he has conducted research on traditional artistic activity in the Ozarks of south-central and southeast Missouri and on the possibility of pursuing National Heritage Area status for those regions. He has also participated in planning for the 2007 and 2008 Old-Time Music and Ozark Heritage Festivals in West Plains.
This semester, he is teaching a general music appreciation course as an adjunct instructor at Missouri State University-West Plains. He also performs as a guitarist, mandolinist, and singer with Sunny Side Up, a local bluegrass band, and has made guest appearances on the Southern Missouri Bluegrass television program.
He jokes that he missed being a native Missourian by only eight miles, having been raised near Chester, Illinois, a small town on the Mississippi River not far from Ste. Genevieve and Perryville. After graduating from Centre College in Kentucky in 1999, he spent two years writing for a regional newspaper and teaching music at a small parochial high school in southwestern Illinois.
He then began graduate study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a master’s degree in musicology in 2003. He is nearing completion of a second master’s degree in folklore, also from UNC.
Matt will meet people from the host communities at an MHC Program Planning Meeting in May. From then through the duration of the exhibit’s stay in Missouri, he will stay in close contact with the hosting organizations as they plan events and auxiliary exhibits in conjunction with New Harmonies.
Unprecedented Level of Interest in Missouri
MHC evaluated proposals from thirty-three communities, more than had ever applied in a single state for a MOMS touring exhibit. In recognition of that exceptional demand, the Smithsonian Institution offered Missouri the only open slot in the 2010 tour of "New Harmonies," so we will put out another call for proposals late in 2008 for the 2010 tour. Six more Missouri towns will have their chance to create wonderful programming about music. For more information, please contact Patricia Zahn.
Museum on Main Street is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution, the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and the Missouri Humanities Council. Support for Museum on Main Street is provided by the United States Congress.
More information about New Harmonies is available on the Smithsonian Website at http://www.museumonmainstreet.org/newharmonies/index.htm . It includes a recommended reading list of books related to the exhibition as well as tools for teachers to create lessons on the theme.
updated Feb 12, 2008
