Reflecting on a Year of Listening
For the past nine months, Vermont Folklife has been hosting events around the state that invite people to come together and share the experience of listening–deeply–to voices, sounds, and songs from across the state and across the years. Called “Listening Parties,” these events are a bit like DJ sets of audio drawn from the Vermont Folklife Archive. Since October 2023, people in Lincoln, Burlington, Manchester, Windsor, Winooski, and Waitsfield have joined us for this community listening experience.
The content of Listening Parties varies, often tailored for the location, or curated to focus on a specific topic.
At the Manchester Community Library in November 2023, we offered an auditory sampler of the Vermont Folklife Archive, hearing excerpts from interviews recorded over the past 40 years of VTF fieldwork. We sometimes think of these audio clips as “greatest hits” from our collection: Gussie Lavarn recalling her tears of joy the first time she saw her Starksboro home lit up with electric lights, Ramiz Mujkanovic recalling his first purchase of bread in Barre after moving from Bosnia to Vermont, or a musical selection from the Martha Pellerin Collection of Franco-American Song. This can be a great introduction to the concept of “Folklife” in Vermont.
Turkey hunting themed parties in Windsor and Burlington in March 2024 not only featured audio from a recent oral history project with VT Fish & Wildlife documenting the 50-year history of turkey reintroduction in Vermont, but also included time for live story sharing from turkey hunters. Recordings of the live stories were added to the oral history collection. These gatherings were a valuable opportunity to share new research directly with the community it reflects. “50 plus years after we brought turkeys back, almost no one remembers these birds were nearly wiped out in our state,” said Josh Morse with Vermont Fish & Wildlife. “Stories of the restoration, and then the first regulated hunts after the population recovered, are really our best way to remember that the work of conservationists then is still shaping the Vermont we live in now.”
At the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum, in April 2024, the Listening Party served as a catalyst to revisit an oral history collection recorded in the 1980s, which contained interviews with Winooski residents who immigrated from Quebec to work in the town’s textile mills in the early 20th century. The most recent event took place in June in Waitsfield, the heart of the Mad River Valley and the focus of one of Vermont Folklife’s foundational interview collections, “Crucible of Change.” Longtime partner organization “Friends of the Mad River Valley” hosted the event and welcomed Vermont Folklife founder Jane Beck to share reflections on the creation of the collection, which portrays the economic, natural and social history of the Valley.
Here's what some of our listeners had to say about their experience:
“I really enjoyed hearing first hand accounts of mill workers presented in the mill itself. It really brought the past to life. It was also amazing that family descendants were in attendance. ”
“I had never been to a listening party before and loved being able to truly sit and focus on the sound and language of the recordings, with commentary by Vermont Folklife staff as well as community.
I liked the casual but facilitated conversation where community participated. ”
“This was such a cool program! I’ve talked it up to so many people. I love getting to be in the space where the stories took place.”
