Ballad Singing Workshop with Donna Ray Norton

Join 8th generation ballad singer Donna Ray Norton on Saturday, August 15 for an immersive workshop exploring one of the nation’s oldest surviving non-indigenous oral traditions. Raised in the Sodom Laurel community of Madison County, Donna Ray learned these songs directly from family and community tradition and has carried them forward for almost 30 years. More than music, ballad singing has long served as a way of preserving history, memory, and connection within Appalachian communities. Many of these songs were passed person-to-person and generation-to-generation long before they were ever written down. In places like Sodom Laurel, traditions survived partly because of the seclusion of the mountains and the deep commitment families had to carrying songs and stories forward. This workshop creates space to learn these songs in the same person-to-person way they have traditionally been shared, while also connecting participants to the region’s resilience, history, and cultural… View Source