SMN Archives/Arts + Events
Arts & Events • 11/21/01
Haywood students get education in traditional music
Kids love JAM, and the Haywood County Arts Council thinks they’ll
really go for this version.
It’s not the sweet, gooey stuff we spread on a hot biscuit; it’s
a chance for Haywood County youngsters in grades four through eight
to reclaim their endangered mountain music heritage. JAM stands for
Junior Appalachian Musicians, a program funded by an $8,000 grant from
the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Haywood County Arts Council
has been awarded, through the North Carolina Arts Council, one of these
grants going to only five North Carolina counties.
Haywood and other mountain counties have a rich tradition of mountain
music and dance. But because of the pressures of modern life, especially
with the impact of television, many children have lost the kinship of
playing music together with family and friends. The grant will enable
the local arts council to collaborate with the Haywood County School
System and the Canton SOS (Support Our Students) After School program
in creating the JAM project.
Chris Lowe, director of the Canton Middle School SOS program, sees JAM
as a way to strengthen his students’ sense of confidence and of
community. But he also views the program as a way to “bring back
our Appalachian culture, which is dying at an alarming rate.”
The workshops began Nov. 20 at 3:15 p.m. in the Canton Middle School
Auditorium. All fourth- through eighth-grade students are uninvited.
The program will continue as an after-school program through May 2002.
The grant monies will be used by the Arts Council to purchase instruments
for the students’ use; for compensation for coordinators of the
teaching program; for transportation for the youngsters where needed;
and to provide administrative support and supplies for the program.
Participation in the JAM program is entirely free to the students. The
keywords are, “No experience? No instrument? No problem!”
Local musicians Trevor and Travis Stuart will coordinate the teaching
end of the program, and skilled old-time musicians Patrick Bradshaw
and Buddy Melton have already signed on to help. The grant funds will
buy some instruments, but more acoustic instruments — guitars,
banjos, fiddles and upright bass fiddles — will be needed.
Donations of instruments are coming in, often from surprising places.
When Dana Ward (a Washington, D.C. musician who, with partner Paul Benson,
gave a recent Sunday Concert Series performance for the Arts Council)
heard of the JAM program, she said, “I’m in! Please take one
of my guitars for the JAM program.” When the concert was over,
she presented the guitar, the first instrument to be donated for JAM,
to her mother, Dot Ward, the arts council volunteer who coordinates
the Sunday Concert Series.
When Trina Royar, executive director of the arts council, reported this
gift on radio station WCQS, callers from Haywood and neighboring counties
offered more instruments. The Haywood County Arts Council must now match
the generous grant, dollar-for-dollar, with gifts of instruments and
money from the local community. For more information on how to enroll
a student for JAM, call Chris Lowe at 646.3449. Call the Arts Council
at 452.0593 or mail to Post Office Box 306, Waynesville, N.C., 28786.
