Listen Up!

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Listen Up! Folk Music In The Valley

See it Now through September 25th

Discover the great diversity of musical traditions in the Chippewa Valley in this new, original exhibit. Listen Up! encourages you to listen, watch, and learn how music communicates values, memories, and community. Music ranges from old-time lumberjack tunes to Tierra Caliente music performed by 21st century Mexican immigrants. Cultural groups represented include Scandinavian, German, Polish, Ojibwe, Mexican, Somali, and Hmong.

Summer Music Series

Happening in the Chippewa Valley Museum's front lawn, Carson Park. Bring your own seating.

The Listen Up! Folk Music in the Valley exhibit will be viewable before and after all music events. Ramones Ice Cream Parlor will be open during all events in this series.

UPDATE: If an event needs to be cancelled/changed due to weather we will post info here, and on on social media, approximately two hours before it's start time.

This free concert series is made possible by WESTconsin Credit Union, Volume One, and Chippewa Valley Family

• Wednesday, June 30, 6 - 7pm.
Harps in the Park led by Midwest Harp studio owner Bethany Shuda. Museum and Ramone's Ice Cream Parlor are open until 8.

• Saturday, July 10, 1pm -3pm.
Maple Ridge Band. Bluegrass and old-timey fiddle music.

• Sunday, Aug. 8, 12pm - 2pm.
Eggplant Heroes. An eclectic mix of originals, literary adaptations, mountain gospel, and folk.

• Sunday, Sept. 12, 1:30pm- 2:30pm.
Minnesota State Fiddlers Association (MSFA) Upper Midwest fiddle music.

Sept. 25th Exhibit Closing Event

Bring your own seating and enjoy a free concert on the museum's front lawn from one of the bands found in the exhibit.

Sliced Bread Jug Band, 12:30 pm

The Listen Up! Folk Music in the Valley exhibit will be viewable from 12pm to 5pm. Ramones Ice Cream Parlor will be open during museum hours.

Sliced Bread Jug Band

Take a Listen to sounds from the valley...

Mishomis Giisis (Grandfather Sun)
Frank Montano
Spirit Sky, 2005

Txoj Phuam Txoom Suab
Pagnia Xiong
2010

Adiccion TK
2019

"27 Practicing musicians featured,
Various Instruments,
Audio clips and samples,

... Guide you through how traditions are
carried forward over time."

Highlighted Artifacts Include:

• Randie Easterson Severon’s violin. Severson was the rare female fiddler performing at dances and house parties in the early 20th century. Musicians share their music, and the waltz she shared with Leonard Finseth, a Mondovi farmer also in the exhibit, can be heard in the exhibit. Of special note – the Randie Easterson Waltz is regularly performed by the Minnesota Fiddlers Association which will be doing a modern recording of the waltz

• A reproduction of song lyrics written in 1998 for Pagnia Xiong. Xiong is nationally known within the Hmong community for her Hmong-American pop music. She began singing while growing up in Eau Claire. To date she has produced 3 albums.

• Wooden flute made and used by Frank Montano, on loan. Montano is an Ojibwe flute maker and musician of the Red Cliff Ojibwa who live in northern Wisconsin.

• Stage clothes, music, and photos of La Realeza Del Sur, a Tierra Caliente band popular from the Oaxacan region of Mexico and popular in western Wisconsin within the Mexican community.

• Guitar making materials and two guitars made by Gordy Bischoff, a nationally renown luthier. One of these guitars is on loan from the Pablo Center at the Confluence and was made for Justin Vernon out of whiskey barrel wood.

Exhibit Background: This exhibit is based on the research and documentation of local music traditions by folklorists James P. Leary and Joseph O’Connell. Jim Leary, Professor Emeritus from UW-Madison, began working with CVM and interviewing regional musicians back in the 1980s. Much of the older historic material is based on Leary’s work. More recently, Joseph O’Connell interviewed Mexican and Somali immigrants as well as musicians who continue to play European-based music.

- Listen Up! Folk Music in the Valley is funded in part by -