Come learn to sing unaccompanied ballads from the Southern Appalachian mountains! Lyrics provided. Participants will learn the songs together with attention on phrasing and technique, and with room for questions on ballad history and culture.
Eleanor Chen is an old-time singer, dancer, and musician who grew up an hour south of San Francisco. Since she was seven years old, she and her family traveled yearly to North Carolina to be part of this tradition; though Eleanor pursued 6 years of classical choir and 7 years of contemporary voice lessons, her first teachers were the old time singers she grew up loving. Eleanor was drawn to the unaccompanied ballads sung by Sheila Kay Adams, a seventh-generation ballad singer who decided Eleanor was “one of hers” after hearing her sing. The two began working closely together in the summer of 2022, and first sang onstage together at the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention in fall 2023. Eleanor has placed first in the Old Time Singing contest at the Santa Barbara Fiddler’s Convention two years in a row, but for her, being trusted by Sheila to pass on this tradition is a greater honor than any award she could ever win.