"A breath of fresh air!"
--Ben Bergstein, Vermont Performing Arts League
--Ben Bergstein, Vermont Performing Arts League
About "V is the Valley""V is the Valley" (formerly "Songs for Today") is a project to bring the folksongs of the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection to Vermonters through a series of "concert/conversations" and the production of an audio CD of songs from the collection. Singer and storyteller Jack DesBois brings the joy, community and meaning-making of songs rooted in Vermont to community centers, libraries and performance venues across the state. Jack's richly textured bass voice breathes new life into old stories, inviting audiences into the adventure of folk singing. What results is a lively discussion of folksong and its place in today's Vermont; each conversation is as unique as the communities and individuals that join in.
|
About Helen Hartness FlandersHelen Hartness Flanders (1890-1972) was a "song-catcher" who devoted her life to collecting and preserving New England folk music culture. What began as a charge from the Vermont Commission on Country Life to document the survival of Anglo-Celtic ballads in Vermont grew into a passion for preserving the variety of folk music traditions she was uncovering throughout New England. From 1930 to the late 1950s, Flanders collected more than four thousand field recordings on wax cylinders, vinyl discs and magnetic tapes, including unaccompanied folk songs, fiddle tunes, and stories from the musicians she interviewed. Her collection is currently housed at Middlebury College; it has been digitized over the past decade and is now available for research and browsing at https://archive.org/details/helenhartnessflanders. For more information on Mrs. Flanders and her work, visit Middlebury College's website at http://sites.middlebury.edu/flanders/, or the Vermont Folklife Center at https://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org/flanders.
|
About Jack DesBoisI am an actor, singer and storyteller originally from the North Shore of Massachusetts and currently living in Middlebury, Vermont. A graduate of the Middlebury College Music Department, I've worked for the past four years as a caregiver and entertainer at Project Independence Elder Day Center, where I have begun to learn the peculiar delights and foibles of being a Vermonter. I also work as a Teaching Artist for Courageous Stage and the Town Hall Theater, and I am a Master of Letters candidate in the Shakespeare & Performance program at Mary Baldwin University. I've performed professionally with various Addison County organizations, including Town Hall Theater, Opera Company of Middlebury, Middlebury Bach Festival, and Middlebury Actors Workshop. For more information on my solo performance work, visit jackdesbois.com.
|
Thank You
This project was possible because of two important community organizations and their commitment to supporting local arts. First, the Vermont Folklife Center's annual Flanders Award for Traditional Vermont Music gave me the idea for a performance based on Flanders' research, and in granting me the award in 2017, the VFC enabled me to bring the idea to fruition in the form of a "concert/conversation" (see the "Listen" page to hear the presentation). Second, a Vermont Arts Endowment grant from the Vermont Community Foundation allowed me to take the project a step further; with VCF support, I am currently arranging to bring "Songs for Today" concert/conversations to communities across Vermont, and I am producing an audio CD to preserve and share this particular moment in the folk process. If you are a community or performance center interested in hosting a concert/conversation, by all means, please contact me. Thank you to the Vermont Folklife Center and the Vermont Community Foundation!