Check out our Program #104 on air or online. The latest installment in our Blue Ridge Music Trails series lets you know about a new event in the planning at the Surry Arts Council in Mount Airy, NC. Women! Mount Airy Old-Time Retreat presents a series of workshops and discussions led by women musicians, March 1-3, 2018. Everyone's welcome to register and attend; there are no gender restrictions. The difference between this and many other music workshops is that women comprise the presenting staff. (Full disclosure: My wife, Terri McMurray, is one of the many presenters.)
Marsha Todd, a musician since childhood who grew up in the old-time string band environment of her family band, The Slate Mountain Ramblers, is Assistant Executive Director of the Surry Arts Council. In an interview, she told me that because of the way society has operated, the old-time and bluegrass music scene has long tended to be dominated by men. She says that while that's less true nowadays, she and others involved in this upcoming event -- including arts council intern and ethnomusicology student Laura Shearing, who's also a motivator of the project -- believe it's a good time to call attention to women who play more than simply supportive roles in bands and in the social culture surrounding music.
The event is presented in tandem with the arts council's annual Tommy Jarrell Festival. The festival marks the birthday of the highly influential Surry County fiddler, banjoist and singer whose music and engaging personality drew thousands of interested people to his small white frame home just outside Mount Airy from his mid-60s until his death at age 84 in 1985.
Women! Mount Airy Old-Time Retreat receives support from the North Carolina Arts Council and the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Blue Ridge Music Trails and the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. -- Paul Brown