Our Folklife Festival curatorial team just returned from Peru, where they met with community leaders and culture bearers from around the diverse country. They made a stop in the town of Paucartambo, which celebrates the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen every July. The fiesta procession features masked dancers who act out satirical skits. It is one of the biggest fiesta traditions in Peru, and we hope to share it at the 2015 Folklife Festival on the National Mall.

See photos and videos from Peru on Instagram and Facebook

Listen to Traditional Music of Peru: Festivals of Cusco from Smithsonian Folkways

Sneak Preview: New Orleans Brass Bands: Through the Streets of the City (Out 1/27/15)

For more than a century, the signature sound of New Orleans has been the brass band—at once a source of celebration, collective expression, and community pride. New Orleans Brass Bands: Through the Streets of the City brings together for the first time in one recording three musical generations that represent three dominant styles of brass bands: Liberty Brass Band, Treme Brass Band, and Hot 8 Brass Band.

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Now Available from UNESCO Collection: Turkey, Hong Kong, Syria, Côte d’Ivoire, and More

The Smithsonian Folkways reissue of two albums per week from the UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music continues! Read the latest guest blog posts, and check back weekly to explore musical traditions from around the world.

Subscriber Discount: Enter code UNESCO30 at folkways.si.edu and save 20% off retail price on any UNESCO CD or album download through November 30.

Expanding Indigenous Music in Guiyang, China

As part of the Center’s ongoing collaboration with communities in Guizhou Province, China, Smithsonian Folkways artists traveled to the 2014 Guiyang Summer Festival of Indigenous Music. Delicious Peace Coffee Cooperative, Los Texmaniacs, and Rahim Alhaj were the first artists at the annual festival to represent music from beyond China, with a goal of sharing musical traditions across cultures.

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From the Archives: Digitizing the J. Scott Odell Collection

In the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections we are digitizing the J. Scott Odell folk music collection. The collection documents the tradition and use of folk instruments, particularly in southwestern Virginia and North Carolina. Materials include prints, field notes, trip reports, tape recordings, and photographs, like the one to the left. Pictured here are dulcimer players and makers Jacob (center) and Daniel Melton (right) in Woodlawn, Virginia, 1965.

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Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian

While the Smithsonian is known for its vast collections and scientific research, it is also a thriving force for cultural work on performance, ritual, music, dance, traditional knowledge, and storytelling—often collectively referred to as intangible cultural heritage. The Center is spearheading a Smithsonian-wide project to strengthen our work on intangible cultural heritage, including this new resource site.

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Images (top to bottom): 1) Character of the Qhapaq qulla dance. Traditional Music of Peru, Vol. 1: Festivals of Cusco album cover. Photo by Patricia Vega. 2) New Orleans Brass Bands: Through the Streets of the City album cover. Photo by Eric Waters. 3) The Turkish Ney and Syria: Islamic Ritual Zikr album covers. 4) Members of Peace Kawomera (Delicious Peace) Fair Trade Co-operative from Mbale, Uganda, at the 2014 Guiyang Summer Festival of Indigenous Music. Photo by Atesh Sonneborn. 5) Kyle Creed (right) and company on August 16, 1965. Photo by J. Scott Odell, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. 6) Flutist and weaver Mariano Maldonado performs with Hatun Kotama as part of the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program One World, Many Voices. Photo by Raymond Fudge.

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