Re-Animating the Sound Archive

Over the past two decades, Brian Harnetty has located historical recordings that document spoken words and musical performance in archives across Appalachia and the Midwest, including the Berea Appalachian Sound Archives (Berea, Kentucky), the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Archive (Shawnee, Ohio), and the Thomas Merton Collection (Louisville, Kentucky). In this talk, Harnetty will discuss strategies by which people in the present relate to recorded sounds that document the past. Through listening with people who live today in the communities where the recordings were made, Harnetty has helped these communities understand and respond to their histories. In this talk he explores themes from several recording, performance, and installation projects that embed old audio in new contexts, playing illustrative examples from historic and present-day audio and video recordings. These projects document histories of extraction in Appalachia, social and environmental justice concerns, and contemplative practices.

This talk will be held in conjunction with Brian Harnetty’s residency as part of the Music Humanities Community Conversations Series at Appalachian State University. The Music Humanities Community Conversation Series provides a forum for students, faculty, and staff at Appalachian State University and community members to engage current topics in music humanities through invited talks and workshops given by scholars, artists, and cultural leaders from Appalachian State and the surrounding region.

Attendees may park in the Schaefer Lot, Broyhill Lot, or Peacock Lot for free from 5:00pm to the end of the event. The Broyhill Music Center is at 813 Rivers St, Boone, NC, 28608.