In this VTAAP Spotlight meet Lorraine Hammond and Grant Cook who spent their apprenticeship year exploring the practice of unaccompanied ballad singing, in particular drawing inspiration from Oscar Deegrenia’s singing. Lorraine’s family were neighbors of Oscar’s, and she grew up hearing his songs. Their apprenticeship culminated in a free concert last August in West Glover in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, where Oscar was born. 

Vermont Folklife is pleased to announce the latest cohort of master artist/apprentice pairs comprising the 33rd cycle of the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (VTAAP)! Seven projects will be supported this coming year, including Franco-American fiddling, warp-weighted loom weaving, Tibetan music and dance, granite carving, and more.

This month VT Folklife staffer Mary Wesley visited with weavers Adina Daar and Carol Goldsmith who have been working together in the central Vermont region to learn how to make connections between their weaving practice and their Jewish heritage.

This month Mary dropped by Joanne Garton and Fiona Stowell’s fiddle lesson in Montpelier, VT. A lifelong musician and and Scottish dancer, Joanne is Fiona’s neighbor. The pair have been working together to explore the Scottish music tradition using both fiddles and feet!

Mary and Eliza paid a visit to Heather Milne Ritchie’s stone carving studio in Barre, VT where Heather and her apprentice, Becky Lovely of Northfield, VT, wield pneumatic hammers and diamond-blade grinders to bring granite slabs to life.

The 2023-2024 ‘cohort’ of the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program includes 18 collaborations between mentor artists and apprentices who are working together to keep traditional cultural expressions vital and relevant to the communities that practice them. In this ongoing series of Field Notes we’ll introduce you to some of this year’s program participants and the traditional art forms they practice. Today meet the students of Rolyang Lobling, a Tibetan music and dance class led by Migmar Tsering.

The 2022-2023 ‘cohort’ of the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program included 12 collaborations between mentor artists and apprentices who worked together to keep traditional cultural expressions vital and relevant to the communities that practice them.This note features interview excerpts, audio, and photos from a recent site visit from VT Folklife staffer Mary Wesley had with mentor artist Rik Palieri (Hinesburg, VT) and his apprentice, Jason Baker (Burlington, VT).

For the past year, Jeffrey Gale and his son, Emerson have been participating in an apprenticeship though Vermont Folklife’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (VTAAP). Mary Wesley paid them a visit this spring to check out what they’ve been up to.

We asked master artist and musician Migmar Tsering to tell us how he was staying connected to his students during the pandemic. Migmar has lived in Vermont since 2011. He was born in Tibet and was brought up in India. In Vermont he is active as a singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and traditional Tibetan dance instructor. In this post, Migmar describes his Covid era challenges and adaptations in his music class.