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Mac Traynham is teaching Ashlee Watkins from Australia about the old time traditional music of Southwest Virginia.

Traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremonies are focal points for making connections with friends and loved ones. It’s not a small undertaking, with three servings of coffee paired with popcorn, barley and other baked goods after a multi-course lunch or dinner. Lemlem Gebray is teaching her daughters, Datta and Akeza Seyoum, in the Ethiopian coffee ceremony tradition for the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program. In this Episode of Folklife Fieldnotes, we honor the coffee ceremony with Lemlem and her daughters.

With a lineage tracing back to the 1890s, Maxham Violins continues through Richard Maxham, the fifth generation in his family to carry on the legacy of making their instruments. He is currently apprenticing under Daniel Smith from Lynchburg, a master wood maker and violin maker through the 2022-2023 Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Class.

Punk music has held strong to the ethos of doing it yourself, or DIY for short. Very few punk bands make a living playing this music. In most of America, established venues for heavy music are few and far between. This is where the DIY ethos shines, and how houses become DIY music venues.

The Making Trash Bloom project at the Shenandoah County Landfill attracts the interest of the Virginia Recycling Association… Just weeks after Charlottesville public school teachers get the nod to unionize, the Fairfax County School Board follows suit, allowing staff to bargain collectively… Two of Virginia’s representatives in Congress renew a push to help Americans suffering from long COVID, and for research into the condition….

Yesterday, we heard from some of the adults involved in a community dialogue over public schools in Rockingham County, but what are the students saying?... After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Senator Mark Warner defends his 2018 vote to ease regulations on midsize banks… We meet the creator of an award-winning Charlottesville-based sewing podcast that centers and celebrates Black women, girls, and femmes….

UVa’s police chief, who served for years as chief of police in Charlottesville, says he’s never seen the level of gun violence the city is experiencing… Governor Youngkin sends amendments to 78 bills back to the General Assembly… Local educators and filmmakers come together to tell authentic stories about and with youth with disabilities….

State lawmakers working behind the scenes on the budget say they’re pausing their discussions, over concerns about a possible recession… A Mennonite musical tradition dating back two centuries is alive and well in the Shenandoah Valley… After fighting to keep the team alive during the pandemic, the Rocktown Rollers are back with a record number of skaters….

The case of Xzavier Hill, the Charlottesville man shot dead by state police in 2021, goes before a federal judge… National civil rights leaders call for justice at the funeral of Irvo Otieno… A comic shop in Winchester is using art to raise money for a local literacy organization….

In this episode of Folklife Fieldnotes, we ponder taking traditional Sephardic Jewish music into uncharted realms and how preserving the tradition, while expanding on it, is an essential way to introduce old music to new audiences.