Volunteer Opportunities for Western Connecticut

In partnership with United Way of Western Connecticut

The guiding purpose of The Connecticut Folklife Project, Inc. is the promotion of intercultural understanding through the folk arts. We will document (through publications including the written word, visual, audio and digital means), preserve, revitalize, and present traditional and contemporary folk arts.

Description:
Folk arts include but are not limited to music, dance, storytelling, instrument building, fine arts, traditional healing arts, mask making, costuming, and other related performing arts found in the cultures now represented in North America or throughout the world. In particular, the focus of the Connecticut Folklife Project, Inc. will be on traditional activities considered integral to and a reflection of the cultures they spring from, particularly (but not exclusively) as found in the North American cultural mosaic.

There will be an emphasis on the creation of educational resources and staging of public and educational events (to take place particularly in western Connecticut and the greater Danbury area) featuring culture bearers who are master artists.

History:
In 1985 Judith Cook Tucker, an ethnomusicologist, composer and folk musician, founded World Music Press, a small publishing company dedicated to providing music educators with authentic, in-depth and accessible resources featuring music from around the world. Key to each project was the participation of a master
musician from the culture, to offer the "insider's view" to the reader. The "bottom line" was intercultural understanding through music, inspired by her
vision of music being a bridge between cultures, and an avenue to world peace.

To share her passion for these new resources, she offered staff development workshops at state, regional, national and international music education conferences and for numerous school systems across the United States. She has received
numerous honors for her work as a pioneer in the field of authentic world music for the classroom, including from the American Folklife Center of the Smithsonian, the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, and the Connecticut Music Educators Association.

In 2003, noting the devastating impact of the No Child Left Behind mandate on school music and art budgets (an impact that left music and art educators with drastically reduced funds to purchase supplemental materials) , she decided to create a non-profit corporation that would enable her to continue and expand her work, and ultimately provide resources and workshops to educators, libraries and community outreach programs at low or no cost.

The resulting non-profit Connecticut Folklife Project, Inc. (501c3) was founded in 2004 with her longtime colleagues Dennis Waring, PhD, an ethnomusicologist multi-instrumentalist, performer and author of numerous books on building and using folk instruments and curator of the Wesleyan University world instrument collection; and Rick Asselta, EdD, former Peace Corps volunteer, instructor of anthropology at Western CT State University, faculty member of the Alternative Center for Education in Danbury, and Director of University Programs for the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots and Shoots Program.

By seeking out master musicians and folk artists from many cultures, documenting and sharing their work with the public (especially in communities where arts funding has been reduced), the Connecticut Folklife Project, Inc. hopes to give deserved recognition and support to these cultural treasures, foster intercultural understanding, and serve as an agent for peace.

Contact people:

Judith Cook Tucker, President, Exec. Director, (203) 748-1131, (email) Dennis Waring, Secretary, (860) 347-5354, (email)

Address:

18 Kilian Dr Danbury, CT 06811 (See a map)

Directions:

Take Route 39N to King St. Left on South King. First right on Judith Dr. to intersection with Kilian. House is directly across.