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Welcome to the New York Folklore Society

Serving NY's folklore and folk arts & traditional arts and culture since 1944

Link to About the Folklore Society

Link to NYFS Programs

Link to NYFS Publications

Link to NYFS Resources

Link to Around the State events and announcements calendar

Link to What is Folklore? page

Link to Membership information page

Link to FOLK ARTS --Gallery of NY Traditions

Link to New York Traditions on-line gallery shop

Link to Search Engine

Link to form to contact NYFS


The New York Folklore Society is pleased to announce that

Ethnomusicologist
Tom van Buren
of Hastings-on-Hudson has been named as a Project Consultant with the New York Folklore Society’s new technical assistance initiative targeting folk and traditional musicians in New York State.

Funded by the New York State Music Fund, the initiative will provide training and professional development opportunities for musicians throughout the state on topics including recording technology, marketing, copyright and intellectual property, and working within school settings. The project will also launch a web-based resource for folk and traditional music in New York State.

Tom Van Buren holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland. He has worked for over twenty years as an ethnomusicologist and folklorist with particular expertise in urban ethnomusicology, cultural migration, documentation and archiving. He currently serves as the Folk Arts Program Director for the Westchester Arts Council in White Plains, New York, as well as the archivist for the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York City.


SHOP NOW at
FOLK ARTS - New York Traditions Gallery
our on-line
gallery shop
for folk art,
music, books, and handmade gifts!

Quilt
Visit our
Gallery of NY Traditions


Share NYFS
with your friends!
Membership
makes a great gift!


AVAILABLE ON-LINE IN OUR GALLERY SHOP

North Country Christmas
North Country Christmas
Stan Ransom and
Marne O’Shae


Cover of Oh! That Low Bridge!
Oh! That Low Bridge!
George Ward
Songs of the Erie Canal


Cover of  Mountain Air by Dan Berggren
Mountain Air
Dan Berggren
Traditional and Original Music of the Adirondacks

Old Stone Walls: Catskill Land and Lore
Old Stone Walls: Catskill Land and Lore
by Norman J. Van Valkenburgh


Adirondack Characters and Campfire Yarns
Adirondack Characters and Campfire Yarns
Early Settlers and Their Traditions
by William J. O’Hern


CSNYS logo


CYC logo
Donate to our work on-line by visiting
ChooseYourCharity.com,
the donor education and information website of the Council of Community Services of New York State, Inc. (CCSNYS).



New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org


     
Discover the New York Folklore Society
Cover of Spring Summer 2008 Voices
Become a member to receive VOICES!

TO HONOR GRACE HUDOWALSKI
the Grace Peak Committee of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers is proposing to rename one of the peaks of the Dix Range in the Adirondacks “Grace Peak.” Read more about Grace, the first female president of the New York Folklore Society, in the Director’s Column of the upcoming
Voices.


The New York Folklore Society seeks applications for a Folklorist (4/5 time).

The New York Folklore Society is a professional service organization dedicated to fostering the study, promotion, and continuation of folk arts, folklore, and folklife in New York State. It works with a diverse constituency of folklorists, ethnomusicologists, tradition bearers, community scholars, and cultural organizations to strengthen folk and traditional arts scholarship throughout New York State.


Read Position Announcement.


EXPLORING PLACE: SUMMER FIELD SCHOOL
Summer A Term: May 19 - July 11, 2008
Empire State College’s Center for Distance Learning (CDL), in a partnership with the New York Folklore Society, is pleased to offer the summer 2008 blended course (including online and residency components): "Exploring Place: Summer Field School. The purpose of this course is to provide community scholars and students, interested in documenting, presenting, or researching the culture and tradition of their local community, the opportunity to learn fieldwork methods and strategies, and to engage with critical issues that arise in the context of conducting local fieldwork. Find out more here.


Position Open
New York Folklore Society
ACQUISITIONS EDITOR

The New York Folklore Society seeks an Acquisitions Editor for its journal, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. The Journal is published twice yearly: spring-summer and fall-winter. Duties include acquiring articles, working with authors and contributors in the editing process, shaping content. The Acquisitions Editor works as a team member for a team which includes the Journal’s Editor, the Graphics Designer, and the Executive Director of the New York Folklore Society. This is a contractual position which is compensated by the issue produced.

Qualifications include an advanced degree in folklore and knowledge of current folklore scholarship. Knowledge of the folklore, folklife, and folk arts of New York State is essential, although residency is not required.

To apply, send a current vita to: Ellen McHale, Ph.D.; Executive Director, New York Folklore Society, PO Box 764, Schenectady, NY 12301 or submit electronically to emchale@nyfolklore.org.


SEE PHOTOS FROM THE ESC/NYFS SUMMER COURSE
Exploring Place: Documenting Your Community’s Culture and Traditions


listen icon LISTEN to Voices—Hear the sounds of "sacred steel" and merengue típico and Celtic fiddle music. Look for the this icon to hear MP3s.

Find out about our Programs & Services
  • New York Field Trips      Moving Across Boundaries: Roots Music and the Sources of Tradition Saturday, October 18, 2008

    The New York Folklore Society’s annual Field Trip will take you to Albany, New York, for an exploration of the role of roots music and the folk revival. New York’s Capital District is known for its role in collecting and presenting folk music, as well as its embrace of folk music pioneers. Politics, the recording industry, and revivals of ethnic roots music will be key topics for this daylong meeting, to be followed by a gala performance. Details will follow soon.


Worth the Wait!
New York Folklore Journal
Vol. 25, Nos. 1-4, 1999
Cover of NewYork Folklore v25

The 1999 Journal is a reprinting of some of the best public sector writing from 1985-1995, with an introductory essay by Robert Baron. Other essays include the work of Karen Taussig-Lux, I. Sheldon Posen, Joyce Ice, Douglas DeNatale, Kate Koperski, Anna (Chairetakis) Wood, and others.

If you would like to receive a copy and you weren’t a member of the New York Folklore Society in 1999, they are for sale as individual copies in our on-line gallery bookstore for $10.00/copy plus $1.50 postage and handling.
The New York Folklore Society remains in the forefront of a creative movement. The impulse in 1945 to publish the folklore of New York State for the people of the state is continued today through this publication Voices. The editors of this publication encourage your submission of scholarly writing, as well as nonfiction, fiction, poetry, memoir, and other forms of creative literature.—Ellen McHale, Director




Small image of Mentoring Brochure




The New York Folklore Society is the recipient of a 2005/2006 award from the Documentary Heritage Program of the NYS Archives. As funded, the project is to support the arrangement and description of folklore collections using a "circuit rider" approach...read more about our Archives projects




Visit Our Folk Arts Gallery in Schenectady or online
Handcarved wood green wing teal duck decoy by Jim Neenan, a woodcarver from Staten Island.
Green Wing Teal Duck




Sample our Publications
NOW AVAILABLE ON-LINE
Self-Management for Folk Artists :
A Guide for Traditional Artists and Performers in New York

by Patricia Atkinson Wells

ORDER from our on-line gallery bookstore.


Shop of for Museums -- support NYFS when you shop on-lineCAN’T FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR at New York Traditions -- NYFS on-line shop for folk arts, handmade gifts, folk music CDs and books, our on-line shop, but still want to contribute to NYFS while you shop on-line — here’s how!
At Shop for Museums, you can shop at your other favorite on-line stores, and at no extra cost to you, you can have a portion of your purchase donated to the New York Folklore Society. You can register to track your donations or shop as a guest. Select NYFS and have fun shopping! And thank you for your support!


Learn more about folklore and connect to other organizations

Folklore in Archives:
A Guide to Describing Folklore and Folklife Materials
by James Corsaro and
Karen Taussig-Lux
A companion to
Working with Folk Materials in New York State
Order both from our on-line gallery bookstore.

Contact us

Donate to New York Folklore Society
  • Make a tax-deductible donation through Paypal, using your Visa or Mastercard or Paypal account — just click the button below, enter the donation amount ("price"), and your payment information. Thanks for your support!

ABOUT NYFS | PROGRAM & SERVICES | PUBLICATIONS | RESOURCES | CALENDAR | WHAT'S FOLKLORE? | MEMBERSHIP | GALLERY | SHOP | SEARCH | CONTACT US




NYSCA logo The New York Folklore Society’s programs are made possible in part with public funds from the Folk Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts , a state agency. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts , the New York State Documentary Heritage Program, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Fund for Folk Culture. NEA logo

© 2008, 2007-1998 New York Folklore Society
Last updated May 10, 2008
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