#ballads

#ballads

He sings the names of the dead haltingly, as though he is reading them off a screen-which, judging from the recording-studio footage in the song's lyric video, he probably is. The song is about the news, but it is also, perhaps unintentionally, about the moment of lag when we absorb the names and images, when we try to assimilate atrocity into narrative.

I've just given a keynote presentation at Lines of Flight: Improvisation, Hope and Refuge, a conference hosted by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. I'd been invited to talk about my performance research with D&aacutelava, a cross-genre project that is influenced by animist, Slavic cosmology and a land-based folk song tradition that has been in my family for generations.

I've read books and watched Ken Burns documentaries, but my principal education in American history comes from our music. It's my pathway as I search for identity, for lineage and legacy, for community and for an understanding of this vast land, in all its confusing complexities and contradictions. I've learned that our music is a map of our history. It traces our roots and routes, and marks all the places where our journeys intersect to meet on common ground.

I've been nominated over the years, which is always a pleasant discovery... but to actually win it is a wonderful thing.

Raised in Scotland's remote and sparsely populated Outer Hebrides, folk singer Jule Fowlis was immersed in Scottish Gaelic language and traditions.