Programs

The Musical Stories of Journeys

Listen to the ballads and songs that tell the stories of American journeys throughout our nation. Sailors and commercial fishermen travel the rivers and lakes singing shanties and ballads of longing for home. Political candidates go town to town, accompanied by bands and choruses performing their theme songs. Woody Guthrie sets the complaints of migrant workers to old, familiar tunes. The Civil War displaces soldiers into regions never seen, and of course the journeys of those who come from foreign lands to the US as the land of opportunity bring their native tunes with them, then learn to sing here of their new experiences. Cowboy, Indian, colonist, slave, traveling salesman, homesteader, dust bowl escapee, vaudeville performer, gold-digger, Vietnam refugee – there are songs for all of them. Dr. Hildebrand (whose own family traditions keep alive a song about "Aunt Becky" falling out of her bunk on a houseboat trip in Florida, 40 years ago) offers a mixture of mostly live musical selections, plus some recorded, accompanied by appropriate images (if projector and screen available). Adult and high school audiences; also adaptable for family audiences. 

David Hildebrand teaches American music history at the Peabody Conservatory, and he is finishing a history of music in Maryland for The Johns Hopkins University Press. He and his wife Ginger Hildebrand have been performing professionally for museums, historical societies, schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country since 1980, focusing on American music. Dr. Hildebrand received his Ph.D. in Musicology from Catholic University of America, his M.A. in Musicology from George Washington University, and his B.A. in Music from Dickinson College.