In Case You Missed It: "A Handeful of Christmas Delights: Music from Appalachia and the American South"

Musick's Company singers and ensemble for Christmas 2025.

Hello, friends and supporters! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday, filled with warmth and joy. As we batten down the hatches and prepare for a winter storm, we revisit the most recent performance by Musick's Company: "A Handeful of Christmas Delights: Music from Appalachia and the American South". Cozy up with a cup of warm cocoa and a fuzzy blanket as we take you through our program and reminisce. Old friends of Musick's Company know that we do not typically perform American music. The Center for Old Music in the New World has always focused primarily on old music -- things composed and performed long before America was even an idea. However, this particular program still had its roots in Medieval and Renaissance music, if you knew where to look. Appalachian music can trace itself back to the songs of Ireland, Scotland and England, with some traditional songs lifting melodies and lyrics directly from pieces written hundreds of years before settlers arrived in the mountains. John Jacob Niles, a musicologist and performer of Kentucky fame, proved this with his groundbreaking archival work in the 1920s. While traveling through Appalachia as a salesman, he collected tunes from the locals and transcribed them, establishing a musical record that until then had not yet existed. While it might sound far-fetched to imagine Appalachian music as a part of our legacy, you would change your mind if you heard our performance first-hand.

William Walker, composer and compiler of Southern Harmony (1835).

Our program began with a set of pieces belonging to William Walker's Southern Harmony (1835) that established the tone of our concert. A 26-year-old South Carolina singing-school teacher, Walker created this shape-note tunebook by drawing upon earlier printed sources, notably Ananias Davisson’s Kentucky Harmony and its Supplement, as well as upon a rich oral tradition, from which he transcribed melodies and set them in linearly-conceived three-voiced arrangements to sacred texts. We discussed shape-note singing in a previous article. From the outset, the listener could tell that this music didn't sound quite like our typical fare. These shape-note pieces relied heavily on open harmonies and the doubling of parts, rather than the complex polyphony of many Renaissance pieces. If anything, it more closely resembled the early harmonies of late-Medieval sacred music, when composers first experimented with the idea.

From there, we moved into a selection of instrumental pieces, performed by Musick's Company's incomparable ensemble. A keen ear might have noticed that some of these melodies appear numerous times in the program -- for example, "Star in the East" and "Hail the Blest Morn" had the same melody with differing harmonic structures and ornamentation. While this might seem odd, it should come as no surprise, given that Appalachian and Southern music borrowed so heavily from itself and spread largely through oral tradition. Of particular pleasure was the duo of Jane and Bill Johnson, performing a sparkling rendition of "I Wonder as I Wander" on the harp and guitar.

A photo of the Shakers of Pleasant Hill, posing with some of their handmade brooms.

Next, the singers returned with a rousing round of pieces composed by the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, KY, active between 1795 and 1884. The Shakers were a Christian group that practiced communal living and a celibate lifestyle and believed in equality and pacifism. Initially formed in the 1700s in England, many Shaker communities popped up around the US in the 1800s, reaching a peak of 6,000 believers at its height. The pieces composed by the Shakers historically rely on very little harmony and minimal instrumental accompaniment to make them easy for any group of worshippers to use, regardless of ability. For our concert, the singers enjoyed the skilled accompaniment of violinist Lauren Falco and cellist Nancy McKenney.

Legendary Kentucky musicologist John Jacob Niles breaking it down on a lute.

After another delightful selection of instrumental Kentucky tunes, much of the remaining program heavily featured the compositions and transcriptions of John Jacob Niles, who we mentioned earlier in this article. We wrote a longer feature discussing Niles previously, if you want to give it a read. Several singers presented solos of his work, including a heartfelt duet of "Sweet Little Boy Jesus" by Dan Frey and John Hepner and a rendition of "Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head" performed by Sarah Marks. All of these solos were accompanied by Jane Johnson on piano. Niles appeared prominently in our program, in part because our concert coincided with Lexington, KY's 250th anniversary. In fact, much of our program focused on Kentucky songs for this reason, but Niles in particular shares a connection to Lexington due to his scholarship. The University of Kentucky even maintains the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, a collaborative effort of the University of Kentucky School of Music, the College of Fine Arts, the Appalachian Studies Program, and the University Libraries. The Center provides a focal point for the research and performance of American music, from the early Colonial period through the present, with special emphasis on the culture of the southern Appalachian region.

Cover art from concert program, by Laura Mentor.

As is tradition, the concert concluded with a rousing rendition of the Lexington Wassail, with audience participation highly encouraged. Musick's Company delights in this opportunity to create music with our friends and supporters, as we delight in performing for you all. If you were unable to make it to this concert, fear not -- we have uploaded excerpts from the performance. To listen to these excerpts, click here. If you've never attended one of our concerts, consider this article your official invitation! For more information about our performances, click here. If you would like to financially support us, please consider visiting our donation page by clicking here. The Center for Old Music is a registered non-profit and operates entirely from donations, and your support is deeply appreciated.

We will be returning to the stage soon! Our annual Spring Concert is just around the corner, and will feature music hearkening back to the era of knights and chivalry. We hope to see you all there! Stay tuned for specific dates, times, and more blog posts discussing our program.