The AMRC is hosting a special lecture on Tuesday, November 5th by nationally acclaimed Dr. Dwandalyn R. Reece from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Dr Reece, who curates the museum’s prize-winning and permanent Musical Crossroads exhibition will present, “At the Crossroads: African American Music-Making in American Life” at 4:30 p.m. in the new Chancellor’s Auditorium on CU campus.
Drawing upon objects in the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s collection, Dr. Reece aims to explore in this presentation how objects deepen our understanding of music in the United States, offering new ways to construct narratives about the social, cultural and historical meaning music holds in our daily lives. The ways we engage with music is constantly evolving and the multiple worlds that music inhabits is a culture unto itself.
“This movement to preserve, document, and interpret music’s existence is driven by a growing interest in its material culture, the tangible objects of things that are the material evidence of its creation, performance, dissemination, and reception,” Dr. Reece describes, and continues, “the musical object as artifact, anticipates interpretation and has the power to broaden our understanding of music beyond an experiential level.”
Dr. Reece, a scholar and musician, who is highly regarded by her academic colleagues and has been highlighted on CBS This Morning, is responsible for the acquisition, research and interpretation of the museum’s music and performing arts collections, is chair of Smithsonian Year of Music and the Smithsonian Pan-Institutional Group, is leading the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and publishing a book on the material culture of African American music. The Smithsonian comprised 19 museums and research centers and is the largest cultural complex in the world. Dr. Reece considers museums her calling and is working diligently to make humanities accessible through music.
Dr. Reece's lecture is part of African American Music--At the Crossroads, a collaboration with Boulder's Trance Blues Festival and will be followed at 5:30 p.m. by Black Banjo & Beyond, a roundtable discussion with Dr. Reece, Dom Flemons "The American Songster," Johnny Baier from the National Banjo Museum, and the Trance Blues Festival's creator, Otis Taylor.