Aural historian and author, Jack Loeffler, will speak about his decades of experience documenting New Mexico folk music, focusing on the recently published “Spanish American Music in New Mexico, The WPA Era” for which he wrote the forward. The book is a facsimile edition of “Folk Songs, Dance Tunes, Singing Games and Guitar Arrangements” which contained transcripts of Hispanic music collected between 1936 and 1941 by the Federal Music Project, a program of the New Deal. Loeffler writes: “I firmly believe that folk music and folk lore adhere culture to homeland. Hispano culture in the Río Grande del Norte has been evolving for over four hundred years, certainly long enough to have achieved deep indigeneity.” Jack will be joined by native New Mexico artist and renowned folk musician, Frank McCulloch, who will play and sing selections from the book and offer some of his own perspectives on New Mexico’s musical traditions.
Jack Loeffler, in addition to his extensive list of publications of Southwest oral histories, has made extensive field recordings of Hispano folk music since 1975. His radio series, La Música de los Viejitos, aired throughout the Southwest for several years beginning in 1979. His book of the same title was published by UNM Press in 1999. For sixteen years, he co-produced with Enrique Lamadrid the folk music concert entitled ’Nuestra Música’ which is still held annually at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. His aural history archive now resides at the New Mexico History Museum.
Frank McCulloch is one of New Mexico’s most distinguished artists, honored with a retrospective exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum in 2008, and numerous honors including the Governor’s Award in the Arts, UNM Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, and Albuquerque Arts Alliance Bravos Award. His work has been featured in Southwest Art magazine, New Mexico Magazine, and Art News, among many others. Not confined to just one art from, Frank also is a well-known folk musician and performer of La Musica de los Viejitos. A New Mexico Native of Hispano descent, Frank has deep knowledge of our states musical traditions.
