THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS TO PREVIEW “WE ARE THE MUSIC MAKERS” EXHIBITION ILLUMINATING LIVING SOUTHERN MUSIC CULTURES AND COMMUNITIES

TRAVELING EXHIBITION COMMEMORATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF NON-PROFIT MUSIC & SUPPORT ORGANIZATION

Music Maker Relief Foundation – the non-profit organization that supports traditional Southern musicians  by documenting and presenting their art – will be the subject of a museum exhibition set to preview July 9 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (40 Lincoln Center Plaza) and run through August 29 in the Dorothy And Lewis B. Cullman Center, Corridor Gallery. “We Are the Music Makers,” which delves deeply into the living southern musical culture and the musicians themselves, will travel to venues throughout the country over the next five to seven years.

GRAMMY Award-winning musician Marty Stuart said, “Throughout We Are The Music Makers, the viewer is granted access to worlds that are beyond reach and off limits to most. There is less than a razor’s edge of difference in royalty and rogue at the bedrock of American roots music.”

Folk music and photography legend John Cohen said, “I have never seen photographs generate so much of the atmosphere and personalities of blues music.”

In addition to musical instruments, the GRAMMY Award won by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, North Carolina folk art, and vintage cameras, visitors will experience thirty panels that feature photographs of traditional Southern musicians taken by Music Maker founder and head Tim Duffy over the last twenty years, many of which are also featured in his Nautilus Press book We Are The Music Makers, out September 30. The exhibit panels speak to the significance of each musician’s style and have a storytelling quality, putting each figure in the context of his cultural community. Audio recordings and a film are also included which further enhances the content of the panels.

The instruments include a fiddle handcrafted by Music Maker artist Samuel Turner of Asheville, NC; folk art by Sam McMillan of Winston-Salem, NC; and a banjo signed to Tim Duffy by Guitar Gabriel; and a guitar named Pawnshop owned by Adolphus Bell of Birmingham, AL.