App State invites public to explore Béla Bartók’s legacy with three-part series this spring

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Feb. 27, 2025

App State invites public to explore Béla Bartók’s legacy with three-part series this spring

Free events include interactive workshops, live music and more

BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State University’s High Country Humanities — with support from North Carolina Humanities — will present a three-part series, “Bridging the Divide between Classical Music and Folk Traditions: Béla Bartók’s Legacy,” with free events that are open to the public on March 4, April 2 and May 4.

The series, which includes talks by expert speakers, interactive workshops and live music, celebrates Béla Bartók (1881-1945), a Hungarian composer who fled Europe during World War II and spent his final summer in Western North Carolina. Bartók is perhaps most famous in the music world for having incorporated elements of folk music into his work, a practice that earned him the title of “father of ethnomusicology.”

The first event in the series, “Bartók: From Opposing Ethnic Cleansing to Inventing Ethnomusicology,” will take place Tuesday, March 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Room 1102 of the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, located at 423 West King St. in Boone. The program will feature two expert talks and a listening workshop that will help participants understand and appreciate the legacy of Bartók and other classical musicians who resisted antisemitism and fascism in the 1930s and ’40s. 

The second event, “Pickin’ Apart Bartók: How to Hear Folk Sounds in Classical Music,” will take place on Wednesday, April 2, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Jones House Cultural Center, located at 604 West King St. in Boone. In this workshop, participants will hear examples of and learn to recognize the folk sounds in classical music. No prior knowledge of music is necessary to participate.

The third event, “Resounding Resistance: Folk-Infused Classical Music, 1937–1945,” will take place Sunday, May 4, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Rosen Concert Hall in App State’s Broyhill Music Center, located at 813 Rivers St. in Boone. This listening workshop celebrates the 80th anniversary of Bartók’s “Asheville Concerto.” It will open with two brief TED-style talks and end with a free public concert. 

For more information about the series, visit hchumanities.appstate.edu, or contact Dr. Darci Gardner, director of High Country Humanities, at Ga********@ap******.edu or 828-262-2928.