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| Jeff Warner in the News |
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A selection of clips from recent newspaper articles, announcements and press releases. |
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The WIRE – “Making Mu$ic Pay” By Michelle Moon, August 29, 2007 Excerpt from the article, subtitled “Ten local musicians discuss the delicate balance between making music and making a living” Jeff Warner sings traditional songs, specializing in music that illustrates the American past. Using instruments like banjo, guitar, concertina, Jew’s harp and rhythm bones, Warner brings past events to life. If you’re lucky, you can see him do a little clogging, too. Education has become an important career focus for Warner. “I do a lot of in-school teaching of American culture through traditional songs,” he says. His school programs range from long-term residencies to short workshops. “People in the last 20 years have found that kids’ music has been a way to survive in the music world. I would say it’s the reason I could go professional.” In a traveling program of the New Hampshire Humanities Council, Warner performs at libraries and historical societies around the state. He also plays in living history museums like Mystic Seaport, Old Sturbridge Village and Strawbery Banke, rounding out the schedule with community concerts, folk festivals and appearances at music and dance camps and music clubs in the United States and Europe. “In order to do what I wanted to do, I’ve had to make an irregular series of workplaces,” Warner says. “Somebody in the contemporary folk music world wouldn’t be doing as many academic, instructional, interpretive venues as I do. But to be able to look back and say for the last X number of years, I have really survived playing a music that is not mainstream – that is on the academic fringe of the entire musical world – yeah, I’m happy with that.” Warner worked with the label Flying Fish to put out his first album in 1987. Today, he sells recordings on his Web site and at shows. CDBaby carries his recent solo CD, Jolly Tinker. “I think it was Harvey Reid who said to me once, ‘We just try to make enough money off of our recordings to make the next one.’ The truth of the matter is, you still have to record to establish yourself as a professional, and as a calling card.” Copyright © 2007 The Wire |
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CITIZEN OF LACONIA (Laconia, NH) GILMANTON – For the past three weeks musician Jeff Warner has been coming into the Gilmanton School to teach students all about folk music, and American history that has been passed down through these songs. Warner explained that it has been his goal to teach these students, particularly the fifth grade which has been his core group, to learn about their history and the power of passing down tales through the generations. “I want them to know that they are worthy of study, just like the Greeks or Romans,” said Warner, adding that this form of learning really builds and teaches them as a community. Warner was made available to these Gilmanton students through the Artist in Residence program. To help fund the $4,500 program, Gilmanton was given a matching grant of $1,600 from the New Hampshire Council of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. The rest was made up from the school’s budget. Art teacher Chris Callaghan explained that having a musician come to the school was a little different than the artist programs they were used to having in the past. In prior years, the Gilmanton School has had all sorts of artists – everything from painters to sculptors. Callaghan said she was glad to see that the students have the opportunity to venture into a different field of art they might not normally be exposed to. “I think it was nice for the kids to be able to go above and beyond in such a different area,” said Callaghan. Fifth-grade student, 10-year-old Brandon Miles said he has thoroughly enjoyed the program and all he has been taught about folk music. “I had a ball,” said Miles. Teachers of Miles said he has really come into his own with this experience and have seen an amount of enthusiasm in him that is not seen in very many students. Classmate Anna Malek, also 10 years old, said she too enjoyed the program, though she was somewhat leery of the whole thing at first. “I thought I didn’t like folk singers very much, but when Jeff came and taught us [I found] I really liked it,” said Malek. Ever since the first day they were exposed to the tall tales and lively music of folk songs, both Miles and Malek said they were hooked and have been fascinated with it ever since. “Now I even sing songs at home,” said Malek. As a part of the experience, these fifth-grade students, along with the rest of the children in the Gilmanton School, learned folk songs like the “New Hampshire Song” and “Strike the Bell.” They even learned how to play some authentic folk music instruments that are not your ordinary type of instrument, like the spoons. Many of the fifth graders, when asked, said they definitely wanted to learn more about folk music, and continue to try their hand at playing the music. To celebrate the final day of the Artist in Residence program, Warner, along with his fifth grade musicians, gave a performance showing off the new skills they had learned over the last three weeks. |
The performances, one to the school and another before the parents, engaged the students in folk songs, playing the instruments and songs they have come to truly enjoy. Fifth-grader Abby Lines said she was not nervous about the performance at all, as she has a lot of practice performing in front of people at dance competitions. Lines said she found it interesting to see how the stories told in the songs had been passed down. “It’s kind of like a game of telephone,” said Lines. Copyright © 2007 George J. Foster Co. |
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NASHUA TELEGRAPH (Nashua, NH) Bursting into a melodious rustic song, rich in details of New Hampshire’s coastal history, Jeff Warner, a Portsmouth-based musician and folklorist, moved his young audience to captivation. Using music as a guide, his knack for storytelling mesmerized class after class of fourth- and fifth-graders at the Charlotte Avenue Elementary on Tuesday afternoon. The song that delighted the youngsters is titled the “The Bold Harpooner,” a musical narrative of a whale hunting expedition. It is just one of dozens of songs that Warner may present tonight at Nashua High School North as part of the culmination of the Charlotte Avenue artist-in-resident program, a grant-based venture that helps promote early American and New Hampshire folk music, African-style drumming and local history. Charlotte Avenue recently received a grant for the artist-in-residence program from the New Hampshire Council for the Arts. Warner, who has been doing interactive workshops for students since the mid-1970s, says that it is not always easy to present old folk songs to today’s generation of elementary school students. “They’re not going to sit still to songs that were sung before the time of electricity unless they are brought in somehow,” he said. “I’ve learned how to frame the songs and put them into a (child’s) perspective to make them make sense to a kid.” One way that Warner engages his students to learn from folk songs with deep cultural meanings is by using games and activities geared toward children. In the classroom, using only chairs and the children’s imaginations, Warner recreated a whaling expedition to help visualize the experience that whale hunters from New England had more than 150 years ago. “New England had a whale hunting fleet twice the size as the rest of the world in the 1850s,” he said as the students sat in their makeshift vessel. Melanie Paul, a Charlotte Avenue music teacher and artist-in-residence committee member who helped select Warner as a featured artist, said “Warner has created a wonderful enthusiasm with the students, staff and families.” In regards to tonight’s performance at Nashua North, artist-in-resident committee member and a Charlotte Avenue physical education teacher Al Rivard said that tonight’s performance will be a culmination of cultural influences that will blend into one program. Warner said that as a musician and teacher he looks forward to the event because of “the sense of community you get from people singing together.” Copyright © 2007, Telegraph Publishing Company, Nashua, New Hampshire |
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FREE REED RECORDS (Derbyshire, England) One of the songs from Jolly Tinker was chosen last year to be included on MidWinter – a four-CD boxed set released by Free Reed in October 2006. “The Snow Is on the Ground” can be heard on Disc 1, “Past & Presents: From Ancient Cultures to Advent Calendars.” Free Reed Records & Music is a British company well-known for specializing in the oeuvres of the leading lights of the English folk revival. Peter Bellamy, Sandy Denny, and Martin Carthy are some of the artists whose works they have previously compiled. MidWinter is dedicated to music, sacred and secular, that has to do with the heart of wintertime, performed by musicians and singers from Great Britain and beyond. A 156-page book is included. In the US, the set is available at Newbury Comics and Amazon, among other outlets. To order direct from Free Reed, go to Free-Reed.co.uk.
The Grapes of Wrath at the Stoneham Theatre
“Through a shared passion for the era’s music, from gospel and bluegrass to folk, Music Director and musician Jeff Warner and I were inspired to create a musical score which will capture the mood of the nation and draw the audience into the piece.”
“The most colorful elements in this production are the musical interludes, led by music director and banjo player Jeff Warner.”
“Incidental folk, gospel and bluegrass music led by Jeff Warner nicely underscores the pathos and mood changes of the epic story, while subdued period costumes and sets made primarily of barn board and muslin add an earthy feel that’s in perfect harmony with the show’s somber tone.” |
PORTSMOUTH HERALD (Portsmouth, NH) RYE – Rye elementary students experienced 19th and 20th century songs, traditions and pictures for the past three days through a program presented by musician, folklorist and entertainer Jeff Warner. Warner’s program, called “American Traditions: Teaching History through Folk Music,” allowed for students to learn about United States history in an interactive way. Through the Rye Education Foundation, third grade teacher Eric Ross was awarded a grant to bring Warner to the school. “This is a great way to mix music and education,” he said. “Nowadays, kids are missing these great stories that are passed down from generation to generation, and Warner lets the students experience them in a fun way.” Warner, who took part in his first school education program in 1972, told stories, played instruments and sang call-and-response songs to get all the students involved. “This music is the stuff of life,” said Warner. “It’s what helped American music become what it is today.” During the presentation, the students clapped and bounced in their seats. The children appeared to love the sound of the “jaws harp,” or idiophone, which is held against the teeth and played using the musician’s breath. Warner also performed with a banjo, guitar, concertina (a cousin of the accordion) and spoons. Warner even showed how people used animal bones to make music centuries ago. “I care most about the creation of community. Here we are all together looking at old songs, toys, pictures – and it’s fun,” Warner said. Principal Lane Richardson said programs like Warner’s are important and valuable to students. “It’s not like anything these kids have seen before, and to see and hear things from over a 100 years ago is a fabulous learning experience,” she said. The students seemed to enjoy when Warner brought out his signature “dancing man puppet,” a wooden toy he had as a child. A wooden man on a stick appears to be dancing when a flat piece of wood is tapped underneath the puppet’s arms and legs. Warner’s parents were pioneer collectors of folk songs and recorded them on early disc recorders. Warner grew up surrounded by and listening to folk songs from all around America. With his father as a singer and his mother as a writer and historian, Warner became fascinated with old folk songs at an early age, and still is to this day. “I’ll be doing this until they tell me to stop,” he said. Copyright © 2007 Seacoast Online |
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last updated 20 September 2007 |