The Ethnic Music of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan Collection Goes Live

Ever wonder what I'm up to in my little ol' studio up here at the Mills Music Library at the University of Wisconsin? Well, now you can hear for yourself because a large chunk of my digitization work on the NEH Local Centers/Global Sounds project just went public. The home page tells you about the overall project and when you click on the Ethnic Music of Northern WI and MI on the right hand side of the page you can browse or search that collection. The Ethnic Music of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan Collection documents traditional music of European immigrant communities in the northern tier of counties in Wisconsin and the western counties of the upper peninsula of Michigan along Lake Superior’s south shore. The collection reflects the mix of musical traditions among the region’s Cornish, Bohemian, Croatian, Finnish, French-Canadian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Irish, Slovenian, Slovak, Swedish, Swiss, and Ukrainian immigrant singers, instrumentalists, dance hall veterans, and home performers. There are hundreds of hours of fieldwork recordings--including LOTS of Finnish-American music and some amazing fieldnotes by James P. Leary--searchable already. Whenever you see an event listed as 'Multiple Elements' that means you can hear all the field recordings and interviews (as streaming WAVs), check out the photos and the fieldnotes, and search the finding aid. Lots and lots of great stuff in here pertaining to music and immigration in the Upper Midwest and with much more to come soon! Check it out here: https://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/localcenters/