America’s soundtrack

By Brenda Neugent
Register & Bee staff writer
Published: July 17, 2008

America’s musical soundtrack will be celebrated for the next month at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History through the exhibit “New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music.”

The traveling exhibit, compiled by the Smithsonian Institution and touring in conjunction with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Virginia Association of Museums, explores the essence of American music, from Native American influences and plantation-born spirituals to the mountain music that is a vital part of the area’s own musical heritage.
The coveted touring exhibit is making only six stops in Virginia, and is aimed at smaller communities where exhibits of such caliber are rarely seen.

Danville is one of the largest museums to host the show, and museum staffers have been preparing for it for almost two years, according to Lynne Bjarnesen, executive director of the
museum.

That included a trip to view the show at another venue for Patsi Compton, education coordinator at the museum.

“It is extraordinary,” Compton said of “New Harmonies” and its multi-media components. “It’s very interactive. There’s music to learn all through the exhibits and instruments to play.

“The thing that impressed me and will appeal to people is that this is an exhibit for people who don’t normally come to the art museum,” she added. “It’s for people who love music and are interested in our heritage.”

The exhibition showcases a wide array of American music icons, from “every conceivable genre of music,” Compton said. “Woody Guthrie is featured on one panel, Joan Baez on another.”

The exhibit will run in conjunction with the locally curated exhibit “Danville Roots Music: A istorical Perspective,” an auxiliary exhibit that was required in order to host the “New Harmonies.”

Curated by former education coordinator Sharon Hughes, the local show merges music from the tobacco fields and textile mills with sacred music and civil rights era protest songs, along with rockabilly celebrating Danville’s “female Elvis,” Janis Martin.

Events include:
>Induction of Janis Martin, “The Rockabilly Queen,” in the the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History’s Hall of Fame. 4 p.m. Sunday at the museum.