D R A F T - 'Kentucky Made': Celebration of historic dulcimers at Berea College

Editor's note [OK, OK, we're in a new day, so I guess it's a blogger's note]: A collection of historic dulcimers, and replicas made by Dr. Alan Mills of Berea College, is on display this month in the Doris Ulmann Gallery on campus in Berea. Sunday he gave a gallery talk to introduce the exhibition, titled “Kentucky Made: The Art and Craft of the Mountain Dulcimer.” The event was part of the college's 39th Celebration of Traditional Music, supported by the L. Allen Smith Memorial Fund.

The three-day celebration also featured performances, a live taping of a TV show and master classes by Galax-style dulcimer artist Phyllis Gaskins of Virginia, who was this year's L. Allen Smith Performer. Attending the gallery talk Sunday afternoon were 75 people, including Jean Ritchie, and Stephen Siefert demonstrated the unique sound of the instruments.

I'm drafting an article for Dulcimer Players News on Mills' exhibit and his work making replicas of historic dulcimers by "Uncle Ed" Thomas, Jethro Amburgey, John Tignor and Homer Ledford, as well as displaying dulcimers by contemporary luthier Warren May whose shop is catty-corner across the street from the college in downtown Berea. In the meantime, I'm putting some of my own pictures on line to illustrate the gallery talk. The Latin-looking gobbledygook is "lorem ipsum" dummy text used in publication design. I'm using it to separate the pictures until I get a chance to come back and write the blog post.

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Warren May and Alan Mills chat with Jean Ritchie.

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Alan Mills shows a Homer Ledford dulcimer made of wood from Berea College's Howard Hall.

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Stephen Siefert plays a dulcimer made by "Uncle Ed" Thomas.

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An overflow crowd packed into Berea's Doris Ulmann Gallery. (Pictures at left and below.)

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