Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures

901 University Bay Drive
Madison, WI 53705
608-262-8180
Web site: http://csumc.wisc.edu

The Ethnic Music in Northern Wisconsin and Michigan project began as a reconnaissance survey of traditional music spanning the northern tier of counties in Wisconsin and the western upper peninsula of Michigan along Lake Superior's south shore. Numerous community members, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, regional research specialists, and Northland College students contributed to the survey during 1979-1981, which resulted in 200 potential contacts and recorded interviews with over 100 musicians. Field and commercial recordings, field notes, color slides, and secondary resource materials obtained during the project represent the region's mix of European ethnic musical traditions including Cornish, Bohemian, Croatian, Finnish, French-Canadian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Scotch-Irish, Slovenian, Slovak, Swedish, Swiss, and Ukrainian immigrant sacred and secular music, singers, instrumentalists, dance hall veterans, and private soloists. Project outreach included public presentations, media appearances, workshops on ethnographic documentation, and collaboration with community groups and organizers of local festivals, in addition to publications that drew from the documentation. The 1986 release of the commercial recording Accordions in the Cutover completed the project.