Lectures in Music Studies: Nicholas Booker with M. P. Howard and R. Trethewey

Nicholas Booker, PhD candidate at Ohio State, with Marion Paynter Howard and Richard Trethewey present “Cornish Cousin Music: Celtic, Folk, and Popular Music Communities in Cornwall and North America.”

This session will be part presentation and part panel discussion with two of Booker’s interlocutors, Cornish-American musician Marion Howard and Cornish musician Richard Trethewey. The presentation will focus on ethnographic research on a transatlantic and transnational folk and traditional music tradition I am calling “Cornish cousin music.” That research was focused on communities in two places where this music has taken root, the Great Lakes region in North America and Cornwall in southwest Britain. Their shared musical tradition relies on interpersonal experiences, a history of emigration, and a dynamic musical embodiment of a shared historical present with recourse to the future.

Cornish cousin music is the product of musical communities that emphasize tradition and those that emphasize innovation. Far from being mutually exclusive, the two points of emphasis generate a tension that co-exists between Cornwall and North America. In the space between tradition and innovation, this music serves as a tool for navigating connections to Cornwall as a semi-devolved administrative and traditional county, a Duchy of the British monarchy, and the home of a Celtic community recognized by the UK government as having the same status as “the UK’s other Celtic people, the Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish.” Drawing on the work of many folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and other scholars, this session will be an interactive and collaborative effort to navigate the possibilities this music affords for inclusion, exclusion, prejudice, and acceptance.

Nicholas Booker (he/him) is a PhD candidate in musicology and ethnomusicology, and a graduate research associate with both the Center for Folklore Studies and the Humanities Institute. He is also pursuing an interdisciplinary specialization in folklore studies. His research interests include postnational and transnational musical identities, tradition, heritage, commodification, and global conceptions of Celtic, Gaelic, British, and Irish music. He is focused on interactions between folk and traditional music communities in the Great Lakes region of North America and Cornwall in southwest Britain.

Marion Paynter Howard from Darlington, Wisconsin, is a Bard of Cornwall and the great-granddaughter of Cornish immigrants. She has a love of music and an interest in family and local history. She is active in her church choir and several historical and Cornish societies. She is also a charter member and past President of the Southwest Wisconsin Cornish Society and served for many years on the planning committee of the Cornish Festival in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Marion was honored to perform at the Dewhelans (Homecoming) celebrations of 2002 and 2004 in Cornwall with music and storytelling. She has also given presentations to historical societies, church and school groups, and other civic clubs throughout southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Richard Trethewey is a Cornish folk musician and songwriter with a particular passion for near-forgotten stories and history. A singer, fiddler, and cittern player, he has performed frequently as a solo artist and as a part of groups including The Rowan Tree and Cousin Jack’s Theatre Company, who performed Mousehole Cat in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, in 2019. Richard is a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, named “Kaner Drollys,” the Singer of Stories.