The Archives of Traditional Music

11/09/2026

More publicity on Oliver Mayeux's research on Louisiana's Creole language using recordings found in the ATM Lorenzo Dow Turner Collection...

University of Cambridge linguist has uncovered a treasure trove containing the earliest known recordings of Creole language and analyzed them for the first time in a study published in Language Documentation & Description. The recordings were taken by famed Black linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner, who studied Gullah languages spoken by Black Americans living in South Carolina and traveled to Sierra Leone in search of the dialect’s African influences.

Full story and audio clips: https://nautil.us/listen-to-the-earliest-known-recordings-of-a-nearly-dead-american-language-1286289?giftLink=3b0367928f2cae2f4a8a5617b701475b

11/05/2026

Can’t make the ATM’s Hoagy Carmichael Birthday Celebration (DOB: 11/22/1899) later today (11/5) at the First Thursdays Indoor Trail (IU Auditorium foyer from 4-7pm)?! No worries. You can still help us honor this important Bloomington native and IU alum all month by playing “Hoagy BINGO,” a walking tour game that allows you to follow Hoagy’s footsteps and discover campus landmarks as well as historical photographs and recordings from the Hoagy Carmichael Collection housed at the ATM. For more details and to start exploring, visit the app website at: libraries.indiana.edu/hoagy-bingo

11/04/2026

The Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) has partnered with Google Arts & Culture to create a new website found at: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/indiana-university-atm

The site’s inaugural “Stories” offer a brief introduction to the ATM and an online exhibit (sound, image, and context) focused on the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Berthold Laufer Collection, which is housed and preserved at Indiana University and offers some of the oldest recordings of music from China. Selected musical content featured in this online exhibit includes brothel songs and a sound tour of Shanghai.

Yun-Kiu Lo, former ATM Graduate Assistant and Ph.D. candidate in the IU Folklore & Ethnomusicology program, was instrumental in making the site happen and go live here in recent days. It is with our sincerest gratitude that the ATM Staff share its deepest appreciation by saying… THANK YOU, YUKI!!! Well done! 🙌

The Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) is housed in the William and Gayle Cook Music Library. With over 120,000 recordings, including more than 4,000 fiel...

11/02/2026

Come join the ATM's Hoagy Carmichael Birthday Celebration at the IU Auditorium (11/5 from 4-7pm) part of this coming First Thursdays Indoor Trail Event!

For more details, see the IU Arts and Humanities Council Facebook post at: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1PuLiRAVFW/

11/02/2026

CHECK IT OUT!!! ATM makes the news in the New York Times...
The Lorenzo Dow Turner Collection housed at the Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) was recently featured in a New York Times article on Cambridge University linguist Oliver Mayeux's research on Louisiana Creole language.

The rediscovery of a forgotten recording from 1935 sheds light on a language rooted in the state’s history of slavery and French colonialism.

10/09/2026

The ATM will be closed to the public today (Friday 10/9) so that our staff can participate in the "FOLK 100: Foundations of our Fields" symposium. This is FREE event so you should come check it out!...

Don’t forget to join us this Friday, October 9 for our FOLK 100 Symposium: Foundations of Our Fields!

The event will start with a pop-up exhibit at the Lilly Library at 10:00am. Following the exhibit, we will move over to the Shreve Auditorium in the Global and International Studies Building for the remainder of the day’s activities. The event will conclude with a reception from 6:00pm – 8:00pm.

For the complete schedule of symposium activities, please visit our website: https://folklore.indiana.edu/news-events/2026-folk-100-symposium.html

This event was supported and partially funded by the IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Program, the College of Arts and Sciences, the American Folklore Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Department of English, and the Monroe County History Center.

10/01/2026

ATM is jumping on the FOLK 100 celebration bandwagon by sharing a recent blog post/podcast created by Chase Hastings (pictured), one of our Student Academic Appointments and a second-year graduate student pursing an MLS degree at IU Luddy Department of Information and Library Science.

For this entry, Chase presents an annotated playlist featuring select song recordings from the ATM’s holdings relevant to IU alum Mabel Evangeline Neal’s 100-song collection of Brown Count Songs and Ballads, which she curated in 1926 as part of her graduate work while pursuing her master’s in English under the supervision of renowned IU Distinguished Professor of English and Folklore, Stith Thompson (1885-1976).

Neal’s 100-song collection is recognized as one of the springboards for graduate training in folklore studies here in Bloomington, which ultimately led to the establishment of the IU Folklore & Ethnomusicology department years later.

Chase began working with the ATM in Summer 2025, where his strong interest in archival work, digital libraries, and old-time music (particularly local styles and traditions) is getting to be practiced and explored.

His favorite ATM collection that he has worked on so far has been creating descriptive metadata for the Joe Dawson Collection, ca. 1980-2012, a 50-plus hour collection of fiddle performances by Bloomington fiddlers Joe Dawson and Grey Larsen.

To read and/or listen to Chase’s blog/podcast “Folk 100: A playlist from the Archives of Traditional Music” on the IU Libraries website, visit: https://blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/atm/2026/06/25/folk-100-a-playlist-from-the-archives-of-traditional-music/

09/25/2026

With the Fall 2026 semester well underway, Heather Sloan, ATM's Outreach and Public Services Archivist/Assistant Librarian, recently offered instructions sessions for both MUS-M510 and FOLK-F312, graduate and undergraduate classes that deal with special topics related to various folk music traditions, which are both taught by Dr. Lynn Ho**er, PhD, Associate Professor of Music (Musicology) at IU's Jacobs School of Music.

09/18/2026

SEM 2026 Annual Meeting is coming to Bloomington with volunteer opportunities available...

09/18/2026

Former ATM Library/Graduate Assistant Suyash Kumar Neupane (PhD `25) has been awarded the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship (ESKAS/FCS) for postdoctoral research at the Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland!

Suyash will be based at the Anthropology Institute, and will carry out his research at the Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Alice Aterianus-Owanga. His project, "ReStor(y)ing and Sensing Nepal in Switzerland," dives into the history and provenance of Nepali material cultures and archives housed in Swiss academic and public institutions, and blends critical museology with sensory ethnography to foreground vital perspectives of the Nepali diaspora in Switzerland.

Suyash served the ATM in various roles between 2018 and 2026, primarily engaging with the Annapurna L. Bech Memorial Collection of Nepalese Music for Research and Education (aka the Terence R. Bech Collection).

Please join us in congratulating Suyash on receiving such a prestigious and competitive award! 🎉🎈👏