In 2020, the Americana Music Foundation was launched with a mission to preserve and educate people on the beloved art form we know today as Americana music.
Since its launch of Foundation two years ago, AMF has helped raise funds for MusiCares and Direct Relief to help the impacted from COVID-19 throu a partnership with The Bluegrass Situation. Later in the fall of 2020 AMF produced the virtual music industry conference Thriving Roots during the pandemic . The Foundation has also engaged in a continuous partnership with NYU Steinhardt to feature an NYU Americana Artist in Residence program that featured Rosanne Cash for the 2021/2022 schooL year and Taj Mahal for the 2022/2023 year. The NYU Americana Artist in REsidence features programming that educates students on the value of music through a series of lectures, workshops, and classroom visits from Americana Artists-In-Residency throughout the academic year. AMF has just completed its first event co-produced with the Smithsonian National Museum of American History with Taj Mahal and Allison Russell. Stay tuned for details about the series that will continue in 2023.
Looking ahead, the Foundation’s next initiative is to build a central digital gateway for accessible, searchable, and engaging musical content. AMF is collaborating with the national academic community of ethnomusicologists who are working to preserve music cultures from the rural South to the Texas-Mexico border, and from the Native American songs of the Pacific Northwest to the folk-fiddling music of Maine
The Foundation will link these valuable archives using an educational music interface that will be customized to make exploration accessible by parameters like genre, place, time and individual musician. This digital tool will allow students to explore the roots of their favorite music, tracing the family tree of genres like hip hop back to its 1940s roots in early Rhythm and Blues. AMF will then work closely with educators to build six-week curriculum modules for various grad levels, available to any schools that wish to enrich their music program offerings.
https://www.loc8nearme.com/dc/washington/smithsonian-national-museum-of-american-history/7040913/
