- Visit to special collections
- Music of 1600s, 1700s
- Reading/recital
- Lecture/concert Wednesday @ 1
- Turlough O’Carolan
- Assimilation of other folk collections under Irish folk umbrella
- Archive March 7
- Story of how the Bunting Archive came to Queen’s
- Earliest Irish publication of Irish music
poetry
Millie McKoy & Christine McKoy Recall Meeting Blind Tom, 1877 by Tyehimba Jess
*The McKoy Sisters (1851-1912), were conjoined twins. They met autistic pianist Blind Tom (1849-1908) in 1877.
Source: Brooklyn Magazine
Mark Twain v. Blind Tom by Tyehimba Jess
Some archangel, |
I’m sent from above- like rain on blue prayers. blessed with Gabriel’s lost notes, I can see up to God’s throne, yes, while he plays this soul of flesh free- makes me the music of piano, the breath and burn in the stormcloud’s roar from when sound called up, first made me whole. sounds like love. weighted in my chest -it finds freedom after hurt. I hear Earth’s tremble harsher -better than the soil itself. When land and tree sing to me, I hear notes wildly blooming inside- a spirit shadows across my face, breaking free unloosed. I play the wind in my blood. |
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** Left side is original quote from Mark Twain’s Special Letters to the San Francisco Alta California August 1, 1869 |
*Blind Tom was a highly popular autistic and blind pianist who performed throughout the US from 1860’s until his death in 1908 |
This is a stunning form – I’d love to experiment with something similar!
What Marked Tom? by Tyehimba Jess
Did a slave song at a master’s biddingmark Tom while asleep in Charity’s womb?
General James Bethune and John Bethune Introduce Blind Tom by Tyehimba Jess
Source: Oxford American | A Magazine of the South
Blind Tom (Thomas Wiggins) was an African American pianist and musical prodigy in the 19th century. He published a great number of original compositions as well as having a long, successful career as a performer across the United States, becoming one of the best-known American pianists. While autism was not a known condition during his lifetime, he is now described as an autistic savant.
More information is available at blind tom.org.