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Music
In 1793, British Captain George Vancouver gifted Hawaiian King Kamehameha I a small amount of cattle that quickly multiplied.
Professor Wesley Thomas and graduate student Sharon Nelson have been key to the program’s inception, relevance, and dramatic growth.
Each year, our understanding of how to juxtapose European classical and traditional Navajo music deepens.
Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles is named for the rainbow flag and the city that makes the group possible.
El director emérito de Smithsonian Folkways comparte historias, fotos y videos de su trabajo de campo en Chile, que coincidió con el golpe de estado de Pinochet.
We sing Christian hymns in a vocal style better fitting a frontier camp meeting in the early 1800s—or a punk show—than a mainline church today.
Smithsonian Folkways director emeritus shares stories, photos, and videos from his field work in Chile, which coincided with Pinochet’s coup d’état.
To honor her nona, Flory has made it her life’s mission to preserve the songs, music, and language of her Ladino family.
The nay is a notoriously difficult instrument, which tends to be a point of pride for Cairo’s nayatiyya, or nay players.
Folklife Magazine explores how culture shapes our lives. We publish stories about music, food, craft, language, celebrations, activism, and the individuals and communities who sustain these traditions.