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Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage

Detail of album cover with black print of a warrior figure in profile wearing a feathered crown and armor.

A Journey to Right the Wrongs on Smithsonian’s ‘Anthology of Central and South American Indian Music’

In 1975, Alan Lazar compiled the anthology for Folkways Records. In the last year, Smithsonian Folkways staff found and corrected several errors in culture-group terminology, track information, and sequencing.

Five adults dressed in white dresses, robes, and veils pose along a forest path. One carries a lit lantern, and another carries a white flag.

This Elven Choir in Sweden Sings Tolkien’s Middle-earth to Life

Happy Tolkien Reading Day! On this day, we're celebrating the Eldandili Fantasy Choir.

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The History Behind Argentina’s Unofficial Anthem for the 2022 World Cup

A viral chant energized the world champions during the tournament in Qatar

This illustration shows Lady Liberty over the states that had adopted suffrage, in white.

A Glimpse Into New Mexico’s Suffrage Movement

More than one hundred years ago, women across New Mexico mobilized to fight for the right to vote. Today, we highlight this noteworthy activism in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

On the left, a woman with long wavy dark hair and patterned blue blouse sings into a microphone, seated, eyes closed. On the right, another person sits behind a long barrel-shaped drum, holding a hand drum, looking down.

Warming to Tradition: The Culture of Vocal Exercise

No matter the genre of singing, or where we’re from, our vocal exercises are meaningful.

A woman in a long, flowing red skirt, blurry with motion, dances in front of a line of people seated and playing barrel-shaped drums. Palm trees sway in the background.

The Sound of Resistance in Puerto Rican Bomba Connects La Perla Community

First documented in the seventeenth century, Caribbean bomba emerged in the context of colonialism.

A performance in an opera hall, looking sideways across the orchestra pit. The performers are both on stage, lit in blue on the left, and in the first rows of red seats, on the right.

A Catalan Opera Adapts Greek Myth to Understand the Refugee Crisis

Since 1993, 33,293 people have drowned in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic trying to reach a safe place to start a new life.

Two men wearing traditional feathered headdresses stand in front of two microphones, singing and playing hand drums.

Dennis Zotigh Is a Man of Many Talents, Many Tribes

“As Native people, we have to learn to balance two different worlds.”

A row of people lines up playing flutes. Most are young students, and in the middle is an older man with a long gray braid.

A Lesson About North American Indigenous Flute and Authenticity

North American Indigenous Flute vs. “Native American Flute”: What is lost when the difference between the two traditions is blurred?

Several men and women dressed in all black, standing in formation with a towering stone mountain behind them.

A Catalan Choir Reinterprets Musician Raimon’s Anti-Fascist Lyrics

The Coral Càrmina of Catalonia answers the challenge to arrange a song from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog.

(Photo courtesy of Sandra Chandler)

A Folkways Challenge Reveals a Love for Sacred Harp Singing in Georgia

Douglasville, Georgia, the home of Alexander High School, represents the divide where urban meets rural.

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