MOUNT VERNON, Ohio - The rich variety of American folk music will be heard in Knox County when the Smithsonian Institution exhibit, “New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music,” comes to the Mount Vernon Public Library from October 16-November 16. The multimedia exhibit will be accompanied by a series of concerts, lectures, and films featuring the musical traditions of central Ohio.

The exhibit is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street program, which offers professionally curated exhibits to the nation’s small towns and rural communities. The Ohio tour is made possible with support from the Ohio Humanities Council. Jack Shortledge, senior program officer at OHC, suggested that “the New Harmonies tour gives participating communities the opportunity to celebrate their own music traditions as they learn about the origins of various roots music genres such as blues, country and western, gospel, and folk.”

Knox County is one of only eight Ohio communities selected in a competitive process to host the exhibit. John Chidester, director of the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, underscored the significance of the exhibit. “The Smithsonian traveling exhibit allows us to bring a top-drawer, museum-quality cultural display to the Mount Vernon and Knox County community. I think everyone who visits the exhibit and attends the supplementary programs will be enthralled and enlightened by what they see and hear. It’s a splendid opportunity to experience our musical heritage in its larger cultural context.”

A diverse series of events will accompany the exhibit, jointly organized by the library and Kenyon College’s Rural Life Center. Rural Life Center director Howard Sacks has spent much of his career studying the region’s musical traditions. “Our proposal to host the exhibit was particularly appealing to the evaluators because of our rich musical heritage. Many local artists have had a national impact, from nineteenth-century minstrel Dan Emmett to Chuck Flynn, who toured with country music legend Loretta Lynn.”

These traditions are still very much alive and will be well represented in events taking place at the main library in Mount Vernon, as well as in the branch libraries throughout the county. Highlights include a presentation of Amish singing, rarely heard outside the Amish community; a shape note sing, continuing a two hundred year old sacred tradition; and music by oldtime fiddler Kenny Sidle, who received a National Heritage Fellowship as a national living treasure from the National Endowment for the Arts. A complete list of activities follows; all events will take place at the main library unless otherwise noted.