 This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont. And today we are going to be exploring the Vermont Folklife Center, which is headquartered in Middlebury, Vermont, and explore a number of its very interesting projects that are going to be going on in the current months. We have two guests from the Vermont Folklife Center, Ian Drury and Mary Wesley. Welcome. Thanks so much, Dennis. Thanks for having us. Excellent. Now what I'd like you to do, each one of you, is just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and what you do for the Vermont Folklife Center. Ian, wanna start? Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us, Dennis. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I've just recently hired a director of Young Tradition Vermont at Vermont Folklife. And I come to the job after 20 years working in early childhood education and various music programs and running summer camps and grew up with a life full of traditional music and touring with my parents who were both in bands when I was young. That's great. Mary, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yes, so happy to be here. I am also a lifelong Vermonter, grew up in Addison County. And I have been working with the Vermont Folklife Center or we should share our new name is Vermont Folklife, which I'll talk a little bit later about that change. So I've been with Vermont Folklife since 2018. I have a background in anthropology and also documentary media production. So my, like many small nonprofit employees, I wear a lot of different hats, but my official job title is the media and education specialist. So I support a lot of our education programs both in schools and out in the community. I teach media skills and also create a lot of different multimedia presentations for the center. So. That's great. Well, tell us a little bit about the history. I'm still gonna call it Vermont Folklife Center because that's where it appears everywhere, but now it's Vermont Folklife and we'll emphasize that at some point. But tell us a little bit about the history and how it got started and who was involved and what the intentions were. Either one of you can answer that. Sure, sure, I'll jump in a little bit on that. So, yeah, we were founded as the Vermont Folklife Center in 1984 and were a cultural arts and education nonprofit. We were founded by folklorist Jane Beck who started as the state folklorists embedded at the Arts Council, the Vermont Arts Council, but she struck out to create a whole organization around the work that she was doing, traveling around the state, trying to engage with communities and understand the everyday lives of Vermonters. And so the organization has grown since then. We currently have four programs. I'd say the heart of Vermont Folklife is our archive and the archive started when Jane started interviewing people in the 80s. And today we have over 6,000 interviews with people from all walks of life, from all across the state. And so the archive is both a repository for those materials to be preserved for the future. But it's also a catalyst to encourage us to continue to go out and document and understand the many diverse cultures and communities that exist in this wonderful state. All of our programs have some connection to field work, to ethnographic field work, which is a way of studying human experience. So we continue growing the archive. Our education programs teach people how to do the kind of field work that all our staff is trained in to do that kind of field interviewing, long form interviewing, trying to understand someone's life story. We also teach different documentation techniques like audio, recording and editing, sometimes video or photography. So our education programs happen both in schools but also for the general community. We also have a gallery and exhibit program called the vision and voice program at Vermont Folklife that produces exhibits and a podcast and shares about life in Vermont in many different formats. And then we have our apprenticeship program which supports traditional artists in the community who are passing on what they know to the next generation in many different forms. So that's what we've been doing for the past, almost 40 years. And recently, just in this past year, because our building is in Middlebury but we're really a statewide organization. We travel a lot to bring our programs to many different places. And so that's why we chose to drop the center to just convey that, that yes, we have one building but our work is throughout the state. Vermont Folklife is everywhere or we're trying to be. Another really exciting thing in our history, in our more recent history is that as Ian is evidence, we have joined forces with Young Tradition Vermont which it has been a nonprofit organization in its own right for many years. It was founded by Mark Sustick who has been a long time champion of supporting traditional music and dance, especially for young people across the state. And that Vermont Folklife and Jane Beck worked very closely with Mark on the Champlain Valley Folk Festival. We've had many wonderful connections with Young Tradition Vermont. And as Mark deservedly is working towards taking a little retirement after many years of hard work we're very grateful that Young Tradition Vermont has come on board as the newest program at Vermont Folklife. And we needed someone to direct that program. And that's when we got to hire Ian. So yeah, that sounds like a perfect segue into Ian. Tell us about what you're doing and particularly during the next few weeks, months, years of what you hope to be accomplishing down at the, well throughout the state with the Vermont Folklife. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's definitely a statewide outreach with Vermont Folklife and with Young Tradition of Vermont Folklife. Yeah, so I've recently been hired, this past January is when I started and I've been working with Mark Sustik through this coming July. And I'm sure Beanna will continue to tap on to his wealth of resources to really kind of get to learn all of the various programs that he's created over the years and help carry those forward. So I've been, we have kind of like seven stable programs that we've been focusing on. We've got a instrument loan program which provides free instruments to young people throughout the state where somebody can reach out and request an instrument that they're interested in learning. And then I will deliver that to them and then try to connect them with an educator for that instrument. And it's a free program that can keep the instrument as long as they want. And if they grow out of that size, we can get them a new one. So it's a really great way to make traditional instruments accessible for the youth of our state. We also have an instrument petting zoo which will bring a bunch of instruments, whether that's to schools or to festivals, to events to provide an opportunity for young people, but also I find that the grownups and parents really enjoy coming and playing the instruments as well to come and try all kinds of different instruments. And we have, every year we host the Trad Camp which is an opportunity for people to come and for a week this year, it's from July 24th to the 28th. And it's for ages eight to 18. And it provides an opportunity to be inspired, learn about, perform tunes, songs and dances from a variety of traditional styles. Campers will participate in group sessions each day with a variety of course staff and guest instructors. And you can be a beginner, you can be intermediate and advanced levels and we provide content for you to engage in those various activities. And this year we've got amazing instructors. We've got Brian Perkins, Laurel Swift, Rob Roar, Rachel Bell, Heidi Wilson, Jay Kulu, and the Drum Theater, Joanne Garten, Mick Marcering, Oliver Scanlon and Paul Rochelieu. And so there's really just like a wonderful group of people. Oh, and Sam Amidon is also joining us this year which is really exciting. Okay, I think I saw. Go ahead. I think I saw a concert that is coming up in this extension possibly. Okay. Oh, wonderful. Yes, and then go ahead. Oh, you had. I was just also gonna follow up that in the coming weeks, one of our biggest projects is the Young Tradition Vermont Touring Group. And this past weekend we performed at the Chandler and Randolph, which was wonderful. And then we performed yesterday at the Stone Corral Brewery and in less than a week we are getting all of us on a bus and traveling to Cape Breton to go on a tour of Cape Breton and connect with master artists in Cape Breton to learn from them, to learn dances and songs and tour the island, which is an incredible opportunity for this group of amazingly talented young artists. So we leave on Friday for that. And then when we return, we are getting right into the Young Tradition Vermont Festival, which is going to be held from May 4th through the 7th and it is hosted and by the Lafamie LeBlanc this year. And there'll be performances from them and the Touring Group and the Young Tradition Youth Commission. As well. And they'll be on May 7th, they'll also be a tribute concert to the late Pete Sutherland, which will be a wonderful opportunity to connect and celebrate him. That's great. Well, give us an idea of what type of groups, traditional or new with music, art and dance, are part of this Vermont fabric right now, this old Vermont folk life. I know we have immigrants from Asia. We have our traditional Quebecois elements and also traditional Vermont. Give us an idea of the diversity of people that are involved in this. Yeah, I can jump in and talk a little bit about that. And Dennis, you're right. We really strive to be very inclusive when we think and talk about what's traditional in Vermont because there are people from so many different backgrounds in our state. And that's something that I have really admired as I, in my years working with Vermont Folklife and in particular getting to work on our traditional arts apprenticeship program, which has been running for over 30 years. And every state has a program like this. It's funded through the National Endowment on the Arts. And the NEA provides some money for an organization in every state to build relationships with traditional artists and provide stipends for apprenticeships. So it feels like kind of an old fashioned word, but an apprenticeship is a one-on-one learning experience where someone who's a community recognized artist in some traditional art form. So this could be the Tibetan dronian. Ian mentioned Migmar Serring as teaching at Trad Camp. He's teaching this Tibetan stringed instrument, which is really important in Tibetan music. Migmar has been in our apprenticeship program for years teaching this in his community. The apprenticeship program has supported Stone Carvers and Barry, Nepali dance group, Abhinaki artists, people who sew or weave. And there's lots of different traditions. Burmese weaving, Somali Bantu embroidery, Burundian dance. I mean, the list just goes on and on. And so we just do our best to build relationships in those communities and make sure that people are aware of this opportunity. And the next round to where people could apply to participate in the apprenticeship program will be opening up at the beginning of summer. So folks should keep an eye on our website if anyone is interested in learning more about that program. And so there's a lot of ties through the apprenticeship program, which will be present at Trad Camp. And Young Tradition Vermont has also been really instrumental, no pun intended, in supporting a lot of those communities as well. So it's just another reason why we're so grateful that those programs are with us now. You know, this archives, do you have, what form of the archive, Jin? And how are you contributing to the archives? Are you doing videos or collecting albums? Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, the archives are in, you know, kind of as many different recording formats as exist. We don't go quite so far back as to have too many wax cylinders, but we do have one, I'm pretty sure. So there's a lot of analog media, you know, things on cassette tapes or VHS. And then, you know, currently a lot of stuff comes to us as digital media. The collection is largely interview-based, but there's a lot of music recordings, including recordings from Ian's mom. I don't know, Ian, if you wanna talk a little bit about your mom's work, she was a really important connector with Vermont Folklife as well. Let's hear about that. Yeah, my mother, oh, go ahead, Dennis. Let's hear about that, Ian. Yeah, my mother was Martha Pellerin. She ran a nonprofit when I was young called Frangley Enterprises. And Enterprises, rather. And she collected and shared traditional Quebecois tunes and ended up collecting over 1,100 or more. I can think it's that ballpark of songs. And she would collect them in a very similar fashion to how we connect with people now or just going to people's houses, building relationships, singing with them, hosting soirees and having people come together and asking about the stories of where these songs come from and finding many, many different versions or different verses of songs. So she compiled this big collection and after she passed, her collection was shared and has now has been digitally uploaded online and that can be found on Vermont Folklife's website. That's pretty amazing. That's great, because I've been seeing some artists, Quebecois artists on Twitter frequently and also Newfoundland artists on Twitter and I've been sharing their performances. So it's very interesting to see some of that. Do you share that on Twitter or do it on other forms of media? It's a good question. That's always, I think the big work of any organization with an archive is how can we get it out into the world and keep it a living archive and make it accessible. So we use material from the archive in a lot of different ways. Sometimes we do share little clips on our social media, on Facebook or Instagram. I have to admit we have not figured out how to use Twitter but we're on Facebook and Instagram. We also draw on the archive for our podcast, Vermont Untapped which you can subscribe to anywhere you listen to podcasts. The archive comes into exhibit work a lot and we sometimes share clips with Vermont Public or other media centers. So we try to get it out there as much as possible. We've also been working in collaboration through a grant from the Library of Congress on a project called Teaching with Primary Sources which is trying to bring primary source material from folklore archives like ours and get them into the hands of teachers and students. So that's another great way that the archives are getting out there into the world these days. Sounds like a lot of work. Approximately how many people do you have involved in this? We have 10 people on staff right now and we're lucky to have one youth media fellow who's been working with us for a year so she's brought us up to 11. You mentioned traveling exhibits. Now how does that work? Do you have a van or do you bring them to various venues? How do you handle your traveling exhibits? Yeah, it's a whole mix. Again, for many years we had a gallery at our building in Middlebury which is wonderful but we felt like it was just kind of in one space and a fairly limited reach. And so in order to bring more exhibits to more places and hopefully to more audiences we started designing exhibits so that they could travel and it can be very grassroots. Yeah, sometimes it's just our hero, Bob Hooker, our colleague Bob who will just load up his Subaru and drive 15 photo panels somewhere. We're experimenting with having things be even more portable. The exhibit we're working on currently was through a partnership with CVOEO, the Champlain office, oh boy, Champlain. Economic opportunity. Yes, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, you got it. And we've been doing interviews with their staff and clients and collaborating with those folks to create an exhibit about both people who are experiencing homelessness and supporting that community in Vermont. And that exhibit will be on display in City Hall Park this spring. And so the exhibit materials, there are photographs and also audio clips from the interviews. And that's being printed on a lightweight plastic foam core that will be on display in the park. So we're trying lots of different ways to make our exhibits go farther. That's amazing. Well, tell us a little bit about what you need. You really have a very ambitious set of projects and that is an excellent website, a lot of resources on that. We're gonna put that on the screen or in the video so people can refer to that. But tell us what you need, whether it's volunteers or people to come forth with materials they may have or funding sources or anything of that nature. Give us an idea of how our listeners can help. I see Ian, you're ready, I see you're ready to talk. Yes, yeah, I appreciate the question. We are indeed in need of having some volunteers for the upcoming festival and people can visit our website at fromoutfolklife.org slash ytfest to find a link to the volunteer signup form. Yeah, that would be super helpful. Also, very appreciative of anyone willing to spread the word about our upcoming events. So our festival would be super happy to have that spread around and also our track camp from July 24th to 28th. So that would be great and all the information and registering for that is on the website. That's great. It says that the Vermont Folklife is nationally known. Do you have any relationships with any national or international, perhaps Canadian organizations that you share information and resources with? Yeah, I mean, there's certainly many like-minded organizations across the country that we stay in touch with because we're doing similar work. And we're a pretty, there's a lot of different disciplines represented in our work, but we are at our core of Vermont Folklife and so the American Folklife Center is a national organization that hosts the conference once a year, which is a wonderful way for our colleagues to come together. We are also connected with the national endowment on the arts through our apprenticeship program. So yeah, there's definitely a wider network outside the state. And across the border, we certainly have a lot of relationships in Quebec with musicians. I'm trying to think if there's any organizations Ian in particular. And none are coming to mind like immediately in terms of a specific organization, but there is a lot of partnerships with individual artists and people reaching out to young tradition Vermont of looking at ways that we can participate or have youth participate in their events. So there's a lot of advice versa. Like one of the things that's amazing about the touring group is we not only go and visit, but we have people come and visit us as well. So there's kind of an exchange there of across the border. There's the touring group has in the past before I was a part of young tradition and this capacity has traveled to Scotland. They've come to England. They've traveled around the United States to connect on all kinds of various music and sharing of music of our music, but also learning and listening to others' music as well. That's great. It's really something else. And what major events are you looking to work on beyond this year perhaps something really into the future? If you're thinking about that right now, just let us know. Yeah, as Ian has mentioned, we have this spring it's kind of a lot of focus on young tradition Vermont. We're very excited for that. Later in the summer we have a couple of learning opportunities. So we have a public workshop called Documenting Everyday Life which will take place in Barrie at the Vermont History Center. That's June 27th and 28th and it's a two day in-person workshop that kind of presents the foundations of the, we kind of call it the ethnographic toolkit. It's kind of how we approach our community documentation work. So that's a great opportunity. And then later in August we have another workshop that's geared especially for teachers and is presenting that teaching with primary sources curriculum material that I mentioned earlier. And that has a focus on farming and food ways. So that's drawing on materials from our archive, interviews with farmers, migrant workers and people who are involved in kind of agricultural life in Vermont. So some educational opportunities in the summer and we don't have anything in place. Well, we have lots of ideas in the works but next year 2024 will be our 40th anniversary. So we'll definitely be looking for ways to celebrate that and hopefully invite even more people in to participate in many ways with our organization. Well, that's wonderful. And certainly keep in touch and we'll maybe get another show going when those events get closer. What I wanted to do today is give people an overview and we certainly have some very interesting things to look at in the near future and also on your website. And hopefully people will volunteer and assist in other ways possible. So I wanna thank you for watching positively Vermont. My guests are then Ian Drury and Mary Wesley of Vermont Folklife. This is Dennis McMahon. Thank you for watching.