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Join us for a heartwarming preview of the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region. This performance celebrates a vital contribution to the region’s history and heritage: Ozarks music. The musical style blends fiddling, folk songs and mountain music to create a distinctive genre of brisk rhythms and bright timbres.

To open the show, David Scrivner (fiddle and mandolin), Nathan McAlister (banjo and fiddle), and David Cavins (guitar) present an old-time jam session, similar to what one might hear throughout the hills and hollers of the region. This rich, thriving tradition, often unencumbered by formal training or musical notation, is passed down from one generation to the next.

Enjoy a performance by Sylamore Special, a group of five teenagers based in Mountain View, Arkansas. The quintet, comprised of Mary Parker, Gordon Parker, LillyAnne McCool, Mercy Grace, and Turner Atwell, share their lively and spirited take on bluegrass music.

Sponsor

The Ozarks program is produced in partnership with Missouri State University.