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 artists 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. Vandalia has been selected to sponsor this Exhibit from June 27 through August 8, 2009. The exhibit will be hosted at the Java Goddess Cafe, located at 200 North Main in downtown Vandalia. In addition, local musical exhibits will be hosted at the Vandalia Area Historical Museum, located at 112 South Main in Vandalia.
In addition to hosting the Smithsonian Exhibit, the Vandalia community will be sponsoring various musical events that will demonstrate and educate for those who attend this unique opportunity. Please see our list of scheduled events or contact through the links for more information.
Smithsonian Exhibit
Listen to American Music and hear the story of freedom. It is the story of people in a New World, places they have left behind, and ideas they have brought with them. It is the story of people who were already here, but whose world is remade. The distinct cultural identities of all of these people are carried in song – both sacred and secular. Their music tracks the unique history of many places reshaping each other into one incredibly diverse and complex people - Americans. Their music is the roots of American music. The music that emerges is known by names like blues, country and western, folk, and gospel. The sounds are as sweet as mountain air and as sultry as a summer night in Mississippi delta country. The instruments vary from fiddle to banjo to accordion to guitar. Yet all the instruments merge, as do the rhythms, melodies and harmonies, producing completely new sounds – new music. The music merges because this is America. New waves of music ride ashore in the hearts and heads of new immigrants and they create still more new sounds from what they have brought with them and what they find here. And nothing expresses the tensions – or the triumphs – of this journey into democracy quite like the music that it spawns. The main beat of the exhibition is the on-going cultural process that has made America the birthplace of more music than any place on earth. The exhibition provides a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of multi-cultural exchanges.
