EXPANDING THE NARRATIVE is a long-term undertaking by Early Music Access Project to center voices of color in the study and performance of early American music.
An outgrowth of EMAP Artistic Director David McCormick’s research on Black fiddlers associated with Monticello, Expanding the Narrative seeks to shine a light on the contributions and lasting legacies of musicians of color from the colonial period to today. Early Music Access Project collaborates with a diverse group of musicians, historians, musicologists, and community leaders to create an ongoing series of live and virtual concerts and lectures.
An outgrowth of EMAP Artistic Director David McCormick’s research on Black fiddlers associated with Monticello, Expanding the Narrative seeks to shine a light on the contributions and lasting legacies of musicians of color from the colonial period to today. Early Music Access Project collaborates with a diverse group of musicians, historians, musicologists, and community leaders to create an ongoing series of live and virtual concerts and lectures.
Sacred Music of Monticello, March 2022
IN PRINT
Learn more about the Black Fiddlers of Monticello in David McCormick's article, Rock and Reel: Monticello's Black Fiddlers, published in the January 2022 issue of EMAg, the magazine of Early Music America, as well as online.
Learn more about the Black Fiddlers of Monticello in David McCormick's article, Rock and Reel: Monticello's Black Fiddlers, published in the January 2022 issue of EMAg, the magazine of Early Music America, as well as online.
EXPANDING THE NARRATIVE ONLINE SERIES
This ongoing series is co-produced by Early Music Access Project artists David McCormick and Loren Ludwig. New episodes are added periodically.
EPISODE ONE: Slave Songs and Spirituals as Early Music
Premiered November 22, 2020
Premiered November 22, 2020
EMAP Artistic Director David McCormick is joined by countertenors Reggie Mobley and Patrick Dailey and baritone James Dargan for a roundtable discussion on approaching slave songs and spirituals from a historical performance perspective. Exciting connections are made between Charlottesville’s musical past and major national trendsetters like the Fisk Jubilee Singers. All four artists offer musical selections from their respective locations. Click below to watch both this episode and the follow-up discussion sponsored by Early Music America.
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EPISODE TWO: Centering Black Music at Colonial Williamsburg
Premiered June 6, 2021 via Facebook Live | Now available to view on YouTube
Premiered June 6, 2021 via Facebook Live | Now available to view on YouTube
Learn about the lives and music of 18th-century Williamsburg’s enslaved Black residents through performances and interviews with Colonial Williamsburg historical interpreters, including actor Jamar Jones and musician Dylan Pritchett.
EPISODE THREE: Meet the Artists - Sacred Music of Monticello
Filmed live at The Center at Belvedere on March 4, 2022
Filmed live at The Center at Belvedere on March 4, 2022
Early Music Access Project partners with The Center at Belvedere for a panel discussion with artists from Sacred Music of Monticello. The musicians speak about their experiences growing up in the Black church, and composer James Dargan speaks about the ways in which his encounters with various Black sacred traditions have informed his compositional style.
2024 EVENTS
LAFAYETTE'S FIDDLERS
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Saturday, November 9, 2024 at 3pm
Sydnor Performance Hall University of Lynchburg Schewel Hall Lynchburg, VA Sunday, November 10, 2024, 3pm & 7pm The Rotunda at The University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA FREE |
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In November 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette visited his dear friend Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville. His visit was heralded with great fanfare, including a grand banquet at the Rotunda on the grounds of the University of Virginia. The Scott family fiddlers, of Black and Indigenous heritage, provided the musical entertainment for this event.
Early Music Access Project will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s visit to Charlottesville and Monticello with two free concerts inside The Rotunda on Sunday, November 10, 2024. Based on his research as a fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, EMAP artistic director David McCormick has curated a program that includes music that may have been played for the occasion and French songs that Lafayette and Jefferson admired. An actor will portray three Black historical figures who left written accounts of Lafayette’s visit.
Early Music Access Project will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s visit to Charlottesville and Monticello with two free concerts inside The Rotunda on Sunday, November 10, 2024. Based on his research as a fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, EMAP artistic director David McCormick has curated a program that includes music that may have been played for the occasion and French songs that Lafayette and Jefferson admired. An actor will portray three Black historical figures who left written accounts of Lafayette’s visit.
MEET THE ARTISTS
Historical clarinetist Dominic Giardino enjoys a varied professional life as a performer, administrator, and researcher. He is the executive director of Arizona Early Music, instructor of historical clarinets at the University of North Texas, and the historical ensembles program coordinator with George Mason University’s Green Machine Athletic Bands.
Benjamin Hunter, a Seattle-based polymath, is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, creative & cultural advocate, social entrepreneur, producer, and educator. Connecting all his experiences into one language, his work and music scans the margins and the nucleus alike, searching for the stories and intersections where everything converges.
Violinist Carmen Lavada Johnson-Pájaro, native of Birmingham, Alabama, is a community-based artist living in New York City. Carmen’s upcoming season includes performances with Twelfth Night, Arcangelo, the Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire, Repast Baroque, Washington Bach Consort, and Staunton Music Festival.
David McCormick (baroque fiddle) is artistic director of Early Music Access Project, executive director of Early Music America, a founding member of Brooklyn-based medieval ensemble Alkemie, and a 2020 fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies. He plays on a violin by Jonathan Vacanti.
Rebecca Scout Nelson is a composer and violinist from Germany. Her debut album Do Not Lament fuses her love of bluegrass, baroque, and everything in between.
With "precise technique, interpretive vision, and impeccable musicianship" (Boston Globe), Sam Suggs (double bass) has won multiple international competitions and serves on the faculties of the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival and James Madison University. He is the son of birdwatchers and an alumnus of the Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra.
Benjamin Hunter, a Seattle-based polymath, is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, creative & cultural advocate, social entrepreneur, producer, and educator. Connecting all his experiences into one language, his work and music scans the margins and the nucleus alike, searching for the stories and intersections where everything converges.
Violinist Carmen Lavada Johnson-Pájaro, native of Birmingham, Alabama, is a community-based artist living in New York City. Carmen’s upcoming season includes performances with Twelfth Night, Arcangelo, the Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire, Repast Baroque, Washington Bach Consort, and Staunton Music Festival.
David McCormick (baroque fiddle) is artistic director of Early Music Access Project, executive director of Early Music America, a founding member of Brooklyn-based medieval ensemble Alkemie, and a 2020 fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies. He plays on a violin by Jonathan Vacanti.
Rebecca Scout Nelson is a composer and violinist from Germany. Her debut album Do Not Lament fuses her love of bluegrass, baroque, and everything in between.
With "precise technique, interpretive vision, and impeccable musicianship" (Boston Globe), Sam Suggs (double bass) has won multiple international competitions and serves on the faculties of the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival and James Madison University. He is the son of birdwatchers and an alumnus of the Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra.
Oh, Glory!
Saturday, March 9, 2024, at 11am
The Center at Belvedere
540 Belvedere Blvd., Charlottesville VA
Oh, Glory! (OG) grew out of a desire to celebrate Black American musical history; it gathers some of the core repertoire of five great Black musicians (Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Robert McFerrin, Sr.) to invoke their spirits, honor their accomplishments, and inspire us. Join James Dargan, baritone; Nicole Keller, piano; and David McCormick, violin.
Saturday, March 9, 2024, at 11am
The Center at Belvedere
540 Belvedere Blvd., Charlottesville VA
Oh, Glory! (OG) grew out of a desire to celebrate Black American musical history; it gathers some of the core repertoire of five great Black musicians (Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Robert McFerrin, Sr.) to invoke their spirits, honor their accomplishments, and inspire us. Join James Dargan, baritone; Nicole Keller, piano; and David McCormick, violin.
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AMASS: A New Mass for Old Instruments
Sunday, March 10, 2024, at 7:30pm Christ Episcopal Church 120 W. High St., Charlottesville VA Early Music Access Project offers a world premiere from composer James Dargan that features vocal soloists Brianna Robinson, Patrick Dailey, and the composer himself, accompanied by strings and organ. For this new work, AMASS, Dargan has married two musical styles he has grown up singing, embedding the spirituals of the Black churches he attended as a child into the Latin mass tradition of his professional choral singing career, using compositional techniques of the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods, as well as period instruments. Works of Bach and Buxtehude have been selected to punctuate key moments of the Mass. James Dargan, composer & bass Brianna J. Robinson, soprano Patrick Dailey, countertenor Carmen Johnson Pájaro & David McCormick, baroque violins Tavya McCoy, baroque viola Jane Leggiero, viola da gamba Patricia Ann Neely, violone Nicole Keller, organ |
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PAST EVENTS
ROCK & REEL: MONTICELLO'S FOLK TRADITIONS
June 2023 | Amherst & Charlottesville VA
June 2023 | Amherst & Charlottesville VA
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The Hemings Family of Monticello: A Musical History Dinner
April 27, 2023 | Montfair Resort Farm, Crozet VA Dr. Leni Sorensen of Indigo House and David McCormick of Early Music Access Project joined forces for an evening of food, wine, and music that offered a window into the many accomplishments of the Hemings family, once enslaved at Monticello. Leni introduced dinner guests to Chef James Hemings, who was trained in the art of French cooking while accompanying Thomas Jefferson in Paris. In Philadelphia, Hemings would use these skills to cook for countless diplomats and politicians during Jefferson’s time as Secretary of State. This multi-course meal offered a glimpse into the Hemings kitchen and the extended family members who learned from James Hemings and cooked at Monticello after his death. Throughout the evening, David played fiddle tunes associated with this highly musical family. All three of Sally Hemings’ sons with Thomas Jefferson appear to have been fiddlers, and there were three generations of fiddlers among their cousins in the Scott family.
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Black Fiddlers: A Documentary Film
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Early Music Access Project partnered with Heritage Film Project to produce Black Fiddlers, a groundbreaking documentary from filmmaker Eduardo Montes-Bradley. The film was recently an official selection at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia. EMAP sponsored a virtual screening in November 2022. The film is now available for streaming via Kanopy.
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Sacred Music of Monticello
March 6, 2022 | Christ Episcopal Church, Charlottesville VA Among the music gathered by Thomas Jefferson for his library at Monticello is a unique version of Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's famous Stabat Mater, composed just before Pergolesi died of tuberculosis at age 26 in 1736. In Jefferson's copy, though, the traditional Latin text has been replaced by the words of a poem by Alexander Pope, "The Dying Christian to his Soul." But there was also a rich tradition of musical worship at Monticello among the community of enslaved people who lived and toiled there. This musical culture, less well documented but much more influential on American music over subsequent centuries, offers a powerful counterpoint to Pergolesi's hymn for voices and small chamber ensemble. Sacred Music of Monticello presents spirituals associated with Monticello's enslaved people interleaved with movements of the Pergolesi/Pope Stabat Mater. The concert, offered in person and online by Early Music Access Project at Charlottesville's historic Christ Episcopal Church, features soprano Brianna J. Robinson, countertenor Patrick Dailey, and instrumentalists of Charlottesville's Early Music Access Project. The program includes the world premiere of spirituals arranged by baritone James Dargan, who will also perform in the concert.
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James Dargan, composer & baritone
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Black Fiddlers of Monticello Walking Tour
April 10 & 17, May 8 & 15, November 6, 2021 @ Maplewood Cemetery, Charlottesville VA
Additional tours coming Spring 2023 | Interactive virtual tour coming soon
April 10 & 17, May 8 & 15, November 6, 2021 @ Maplewood Cemetery, Charlottesville VA
Additional tours coming Spring 2023 | Interactive virtual tour coming soon
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Based on his research as a 2020 Fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, David McCormick leads a tour of downtown Charlottesville that illuminates the lives of the Scott and Hemings family fiddlers with stops at the Maplewood Cemetery, the one-time sites of the Scott and Hemings family homes on Main Street, and a few other important landmarks like the Levy Opera House. McCormick caps off each tour with a short outdoor performance of fiddle tunes associated with the Scott and Hemings families.
On February 23, 2022, McCormick presented an online version of the walking tour for the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society via Facebook Live. |
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Les Délices presents SalonEra: Folk Influences
November 16, 2020 | Livestream
Three violinists – Gail Hernández Rosa, Edwin Huizinga, and David McCormick – keep one foot firmly in the Baroque world and the other just outside. In this episode, they share recent work spanning Celtic tunes, traditional music from Spain, and research focused on Black musicians at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Two musical excerpts from the broadcast can be viewed below.
November 16, 2020 | Livestream
Three violinists – Gail Hernández Rosa, Edwin Huizinga, and David McCormick – keep one foot firmly in the Baroque world and the other just outside. In this episode, they share recent work spanning Celtic tunes, traditional music from Spain, and research focused on Black musicians at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Two musical excerpts from the broadcast can be viewed below.
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Class: Tunes of Monticello
October 18, 2020 | via Zoom
Intermediate, advanced, and professional instrumentalists of all ages joined violinist David McCormick for a fun and informative class exploring tunes played in and around Monticello by both free and enslaved musicians. Participants played along with the tunes and asked questions throughout this hour-long workshop.
October 18, 2020 | via Zoom
Intermediate, advanced, and professional instrumentalists of all ages joined violinist David McCormick for a fun and informative class exploring tunes played in and around Monticello by both free and enslaved musicians. Participants played along with the tunes and asked questions throughout this hour-long workshop.
Expanding the Narrative: Symposium on Early American Music
August 15 & 16, 2020 via Zoom
In an effort to find ways the early music field can better represent music and musicians of color, Early Music Access Project convened a Virtual Symposium with fifteen early American music scholars presenting on a wide range of topics.
August 15 & 16, 2020 via Zoom
In an effort to find ways the early music field can better represent music and musicians of color, Early Music Access Project convened a Virtual Symposium with fifteen early American music scholars presenting on a wide range of topics.
ICJS Virtual Fellows Forum: Black Musicians in Jefferson's Virginia
August 13, 2020 | Livestream
Performer-scholars David McCormick and Loren Ludwig ended their 2020 Fellowship at the International Center for Jefferson Studies with a Virtual Fellows Forum.
Performer-scholars David McCormick and Loren Ludwig ended their 2020 Fellowship at the International Center for Jefferson Studies with a Virtual Fellows Forum.
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Monticello LIVE with Early Music Access Project
May 27, 2020 | Livestream
Live from the Entrance Hall at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, David McCormick (baroque violin) and Loren Ludwig (viola da gamba) from Early Music Access Project present a free virtual concert examining various aspects of music-making in Jefferson’s Virginia.
Live from the Entrance Hall at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, David McCormick (baroque violin) and Loren Ludwig (viola da gamba) from Early Music Access Project present a free virtual concert examining various aspects of music-making in Jefferson’s Virginia.
The Jefferson Project: A First Look
February 23, 2020 | Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, Charlottesville VA
David McCormick (baroque violin) and Loren Ludwig (viola da gamba) presented musical selections from their research as 2020 Fellows of the International Center for Jefferson Studies.
February 23, 2020 | Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, Charlottesville VA
David McCormick (baroque violin) and Loren Ludwig (viola da gamba) presented musical selections from their research as 2020 Fellows of the International Center for Jefferson Studies.
The Jefferson Project: Music Under the Stars
February 1, 2020 | Rotunda Planetarium, Charlottesville VA
David McCormick (baroque violin) presented short, on-the-hour performances of music likely heard at Monticello, including pieces from Thomas Jefferson’s extensive music library and tunes played by fiddler Eston Hemings. An array of digital projectors transformed the Rotunda’s dome room into a vast enlightenment planetarium.
February 1, 2020 | Rotunda Planetarium, Charlottesville VA
David McCormick (baroque violin) presented short, on-the-hour performances of music likely heard at Monticello, including pieces from Thomas Jefferson’s extensive music library and tunes played by fiddler Eston Hemings. An array of digital projectors transformed the Rotunda’s dome room into a vast enlightenment planetarium.
Family Tree: Monticello's Fiddlers
