Road Reports

Grand Finale Garners Grand Praise

The MoMS team recently received some motivational news from Warrensburg, Missouri.

 A review of Warrensburg's New Harmonies Grand Finale Concert by TV/Radio talk-show host, Mark Pearce, illumined the exhibit's positive effect on the community -- and vice-versa! The people of Warrensburg worked hard to magnify the exhibit's significance within their community by incorporating numerous varieties of music into their programming events. In his review, Mark Pearce gives us a taste of the dynamic musical spirit evoked by Warrensburg's impressive effort:

“Having recently witnessed the Grand Finale Concert for Johnson County’s New Harmonies celebration I must confess certain optimism for the performance arts in the Western Missouri region.

'Why?' You ask?

Because I have never seen such a collection of local performers – representing so many musical    genres – live and on stage and proud to just…to just belt it out.  We’ve not had a template for local musicians to celebrate their work before an appreciative, general audience. I must extend congratulations to the scores of people who made the New Harmonies arts and exhibition series such a success. Chief among them was Lisa Irle, Director of the Johnson County Historical Society and curator of the Johnson County Historical museum.  It was Lisa’s foresight, incessant determination and her life-long list of friends and acquaintances that made the entire series so inclusive and dynamic.

And, leaving out many others, I’d like to single out Warrensburg resident and radio show host Eddie Osborne who developed a weekly series of musical performances throughout the New Harmonies month and who produced the Grand Finale Concert. Eddie’s vision was inclusive and designed to show the breadth of local talent – many usually resigned to perform only in near-empty halls and byways. And Eddie’s decision to showcase The Nace Brothers gave this iconic group an opportunity to perform before a swath of the population who don’t tend to hit the night spots where the group tends to perform. So, through the New Harmonies celebration and the Grand Finale Concert we all grew musically.

Warrensburg’s local music scene has never had such potential as it does right now.”

-- Mark Pearce – KMOS-TV, 90.9 The Bridge 

                                       
                     
Many thanks go out to Lisa Irle and the Johnson County Historical Society for bringing this lively review to our attention.

 -- Roxanne Berschler, SITES -- Washington, D.C.

On the Road Again (and We Love It)

One of the things I most appreciate about working with Museum on Main Street is the opportunity we have to visit so many interesting places in the U.S. and to meet wonderful people from every corner of the country. In response to a question posed by our Publications office earlier this week, my MoMS Smithsonian-based colleagues Carol Harsh and Terri Cobb and I sat down to figure out just how many miles we had logged traveling this year for MoMS.

Can I get a drum roll, please? After Carol visits Indian Springs, Georgia next week, the three of us will have traveled 67,299 miles for MoMS in 2009. And, we got the chance to visit fascinating places big and small like Alliance and Omaha in Nebraska; Kodiak, Alaska; Kirksville, Missouri; Renton, Washington; Tuscumbia, Alabama; Berkeley Springs, Grafton, and Petersburg in West Virginia; Kingsland and Carrollton in Georgia; Hagatna and Asan in Guam; Sidney, Ohio; Sycamore and Chicago in Illinois; Austin, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Lindsborg, Kansas; Clinton, Mississippi; Okmulgee, Oklahoma; Enderlin and Bismarck in North Dakota; Ocean City, Maryland; and Hanley Falls, Minnesota. We can't even begin to imagine how many additional miles our Federation of State Humanities Council colleagues, our state humanities council partners, and the exhibitions themselves traveled as part of this project. My math-challenged brain can't handle it. But, one thing is sure, we have the enormous privilege of serving and experiencing communities everywhere.

We're looking forward to visiting your state and meeting you during our travels in 2010.

-- Robbie Davis, MoMS/SITES, Washington, DC

A Spoonful of Osceola

    Osceola Missouri has some very interesting tales from its experience with the New Harmonies exhibit, which visited their community from May 9 to June 20, 2009. Osceola’s local exhibit featured regional entertainers of the past and present, in addition to a display of records and musical instruments used by Osceola residents. One of the local exhibit highlights was a performance on an 150 year old grand piano! This piano carries much historical significance for the folks of Osceola – having been passed down through generations of the Lewis clan, this baby grand was shipped across the country via boat and ox wagon, and later survived the 1861 burning of Osceola. In 1984 the piano was restored to playing capacity, and was recently donated to the St. Clair County Historical Society by the Lewis family at the New Harmonies exhibit opening this past May 2009.

Osceola programming included a Native American festival which centered on tribal dance. Over 100 Native Americans participated in this heritage-based musical performance. Of special interest was the beautiful tribal clothing donned by the performers:

Cooperation within the community was a key element to Osceola’s exhibit success.The town of 785 welcomed 1,828 visitors to the New Harmonies exhibit! Partners were wide-ranging, including the city government, chamber of commerce, local garden clubs, quilt guilds, sororities and churches. Joan McPeak, president of St.Clair Historical Society, affirmed the exhibit’s positive impact on the community’s collaborative spirit with her statement; “We so appreciated the opportunity to have the new Harmonies exhibit in our museum. Three other organizations joined forces to sponsor this event…This is one of the first times that I can remember such cooperation between all these entities…It was a great experience!”

Joan shared this colorful anecdote from the exhibit with us:

“The 'spoon' display created more interest than any of the others, I believe. Richard Sunderwirth, local musician and historian, came every time we had a group of school children touring and demonstrated the spoon playing by accompanying a CD of “Under the Double Eagle.” This encouraged the children to experiment with the spoons on the kiosk. There was one little boy who brought his parents back on the Saturday after his whole class had been to the exhibit. He stationed himself at the spoon display and worked on it the whole time (about two hours) that his parents were viewing the rest of the exhibit.He was about 10 or 11 years old and so polite. If someone else came by that section he would step aside until they finished looking and then go right back to working on the spoons. I was really impressed with his interest. He told me that his grandfather had promised to make him a wooden set to play.”

Looks like Osceola had a spoonful of fun with this exhibit!

We truly appreciate the effort put forth by this community. Many thanks to Joan McPeak for this exhibit update.

- Roxanne Berschler, SITES, Washington, D.C.