Peggy's Miniresidency

A Peggy Seeger miniresidency is designed to maximize campus co-sponsorship as both a full lecture and concert are included in a moderate fee. In addition to concert, coffee house and lecture committees academic departments like American Studies, Music and Women's Studies often cosponsor a Peggy Seeger miniresidency.

Concerts

Peggy Seeger's two-hour solo concerts unfold an impressive cross-section of traditional songs and finely-crafted contemporary pieces: songs about animals, smoking, jobs, murder, politics, hormones, peace-mongering, children and other people, love and lovers, the earth and ecology...The songs are short, long, serious, funny. Seeger accompanies herself on guitar, 5-string banjo, autoharp, English concertina and piano. The atmosphere is informal and personal, humorous and informative.

Peggy Seeger offers different levels of traditional vs. contemporary material. A concert may consist of any of the following:

traditional ballads
traditional songs and ballads and instrumentals
a mixture of traditional and contemporary songs
contemporary songs of social and political content
women's songs, both contemporary and traditional

Lectures

A Feminist View of the Image of Women in Anglo-American Traditional Songs

This two or three hour interactive workshop (minimum 90 minutes) explores the image and roles of women in traditional Anglo-American songs dating from the 1600s onward; it then compares these songs with contemporary pieces in which women are portrayed more in depth and with empathy and hope. In the first half, Peggy sings and talks about folk music and its role in conditioning us to accept and pass on the status quo. The traditional songs are descriptive: where gender politics are involved, they tend to crystallize and reinforce gender stereotypes. In the bulk of these songs (both humorous and serious), women are seen as property, as victims, as nags, as scolds, as schemers and as traps laid for helpless men: they are subjected to incest, physical abuse and coercion at every level. In a minority of traditional pieces, women are seen as individuals of courage, stamina, tenderness, loyalty and inventiveness. In the second half, Peggy introduces contemporary songs by both men and women. These songs are prescriptive-they not only cover the myriad of subjects left untended in the traditional pieces but they challenge the stereotypes and offer various means of solving the gender bind in which we find ourselves.

Tradition and Modernity: The Life and Genius of Ruth Crawford Seeger, a Miniresidency devised and presented by Peggy Seeger and Judith Tick

Judith Tick, professor of Music at Northeastern University (Boston) and author of Ruth Crawford Seeger, A Composer's Search for American Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) joins Peggy Seeger in a one or two day miniresidency that features a Lecture Performance of the music composed and transcribed by Ruth Crawford Seeger and can include workshops or classes by Professor Tick and Ms. Seeger. Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer of the 20th Century and the music editor who set the standard for the transcription of American roots music by staying true to the traditional singers who have kept our music alive.

Designed & Managed by Peter Chan