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Harwood-Cole Memorial Lecture

15 Nov 2014

Fiona Ritchie and Doug Orr, authors of the recently published “Wayfaring Strangers:
The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia,” will present the annual Harwood-Cole Memorial Lecture Nov. 15 at Warren Wilson College.

The presentation, marking the event’s 25th anniversary, starts at 4 p.m. in Canon Lounge of Gladfelter Student Center. It will be preceded by a reception at 3 featuring music by Al Petteway and Amy White. Both the presentation and reception are open to the public.

Here’s a synopsis of “Wayfaring Strangers” from its publisher, UNC Press:

“Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a steady stream of Scots migrated to Ulster and eventually onward across the Atlantic to resettle in the United States. Many of these Scots-Irish immigrants made their way into the mountains of the southern Appalachian region. They brought with them a wealth of traditional ballads and tunes from the British Isles and Ireland, a carrying stream that merged with sounds and songs of English, German, Welsh, African American, French, and Cherokee origin. Their enduring legacy of music flows today from Appalachia back to Ireland and Scotland and around the globe.

“In ‘Wayfaring Strangers,’ Fiona Ritchie and Doug Orr guide readers on a musical voyage across oceans, linking people and songs through centuries of adaptation and change.”

Ritchie is the longtime host of NPR’s “The Thistle and Shamrock.” Orr is president emeritus of Warren Wilson College and current interim chancellor of UNC Asheville.

For more information about the Nov. 15 Harwood-Cole lecture, call WWC library director Christine Nugent at 828-771-3061.