Tis the season for enjoying concerts, festivals, and sunshine. Our new reading list is full of books about summertime and music. If you haven’t found time to make it to a concert or festival, indulge yourself in one of these books to find your own summer concert!
By Emory Sekaquaptewa, Kenneth C. Hill, and Dorothy K. Washburn
Hopi Katsina Songs contains Hopi transcriptions, English translations, and detailed commentaries of 150 katsina songs, recorded throughout the twentieth century from all three Hopi mesas, as well as twenty-five recorded by Sekaquaptewa himself. To further continue the creative process of the Hopi legacy, Sekaquaptewa included song fragments with the hope that readers would remember the songs and complete them.
By Scott Ezell
In A Far Corner Ezell draws on experiences to explore issues on a more global scale, including the multiethnic nature of modern society, the geopolitical relationship between the United States, Taiwan, and China, and the impact of environmental degradation on indigenous populations. The result is a beautifully crafted and personal evocation of a sophisticated culture that is almost entirely unknown to Western readers.
By James Davis
An examination of the role of music in defining the socio-military community that emerged during the Union’s Army of the Potomac and the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia’s six month encampment in the Piedmont region of central Virginia.
Hard Hitting Songs For Hard-Hit People
By Alan Lomax
A compilation of American folk songs from the Depression and New Deal eras with explanatory notes by iconic singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie.
By Amy Whorf McGuiggan
The history of the song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and its place in the tradition and nostalgia of baseball.
By Kathyrn Eastburn
In A Sacred Feast, Kathryn Eastburn journeys into the community of Sacred Harp singers across the country and introduces readers to the curious glories of a tradition that is practiced today just as it was two hundred years ago.