New Harmonies

Celebrating American Roots Music

Returning to Kentucky in 2012.

New Harmonies is a cultural history of America's musical landscape. It's the story of a diverse assortment of people interacting with a New World, a world where cultures and customs met, mixed, and mingled and created new sounds. The distinct cultural identities of all of these peoples are carried in song — both sacred and secular — and the music that emerges is known by names like blues, country, western, folk, jazz, and gospel. This exhibition 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.

03/10/12 - 04/21/12 Oldham County History Center, La Grange

04/28/12 - 06/09/12 Historic Paris-Bourbon County/Hopewell Museum, Paris

06/16/12 - 07/28/12 American Cave Museum, Horse Cave

08/04/12 - 09/15/12 Whitley County Cooperative Extension Service, Williamsburg

09/22/12 - 11/03/12 Fine Arts Building at Centre Square, Lebanon

11/10/12 - 01/04/13 Ashland Community and Technical College/Technology Drive Campus, Ashland

Click here to go to the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street web site.

For more information, please contact Kathleen Pool at 859/257-5932 or kathleen.pool@uky.edu

Volunteer spends time looking at the Sacred Musix section of New Harmonies exhibit.

Volunteer spends time looking at the Sacred Music
section of New Harmonies exhibit.

Volunteers built front porch at US 23 Country Music Museum in Paintsville
Volunteers built font porch for stage at the
Hwy 23 Country Music Museum in Paintsville.

Sue Ellen Grannins shows off listening station to volunteer at KY Gateway Museum in Maysville.

Sue Ellen Grannis (left) shows off listening station to museum
volunteer at the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center in Maysville.

Sarah Siegrest (left) instructs museum volunteer on installing
artifacts for the New Harmonies exhibit at the Behringer
Crawford Museum in Covington

Maggie Pool tests the listening station for the New Harmonies
exhibit at the Bullitt County Public Library in Shepherdsville.

Our Resources

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