Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America with Craig Harris

Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America
with Craig Harris

Wednesday, November 1 at 7 p.m. ET

Online via Zoom
Free & open to all

Covering over 500 years of history, religion, and cultural evolution, Rise Up! combines deep research with personal stories by four dozen award-winning Indigenous musicians - providing an unprecedented eye-and-ear-opening look at Indigenous music, spirituality, and life. More than powwow drums and wooden flutes, Indigenous music intersects with rock, blues, jazz, folk music, reggae, hip-hop, classical music, and more. 

In conjunction with Rise Up!’s publication, join Craig Harris for an immersive, 90-minute, multimedia introduction to today’s Indigenous music, incorporating songs, research-based stories, a video sampling of pace setting artists, and guided music-making.

Music historian, percussionist, and Washington, DC radio host, Craig Harris is the author of The New Folk Music, The Band; Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow; Bluegrass, Newgrass, Old-time, & Americana Music, Crossing Borders, and the forthcoming Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America. Playing drums/percussion since his teens, Harris has played with C.J. Chenier, Greg Brown, Jonathan Edwards, Rod MacDonald, Melanie, Mustard’s Retreat, Merl Saunders, Rick Danko (The Band), and Los Texmaniacs. Since 2014, he’s co-hosted the syndicated Gaea Crystal Radio Hour. After teaching music in public/charter schools in Boston, Somerville, Chelsea, and Springfield, MA for twenty-six years, Harris launched Drum Away the Blues in 2009. Since then, he's presented multimedia/music programs in libraries, schools, and childcare/senior centers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, North Dakota, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

This event will be recorded and posted to our YouTube channel: OLLI: The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College.