Free Creole music performance set for Sunday at community center

Nevada, Mo. -- Head-spinning, soul-jumping French Ozark music by fiddler Dennis Stroughmatt and his trio, L'Esprit Creole," will entertain guests for free Sunday, Oct. 10, in performance at the Franklin P. Norman City/County Community Center as part of the musical series supporting the traveling Smithsonian exhibit now at the Bushwhacker Museum.

The tuneful show will begin at 2 p.m. with no admission fee, but donations will be accepted.

Planned weekly through Nov. 7, the live performances support "New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music", which runs through Nov. 19, according to Terry Ramsey, museum coordinator.

The language and culture of Creole people who lived long ago in the Missouri Ozarks in the vicinity of Potosi and St. Genevieve, has been studied by a few scholars including Stroughmatt, who became interested in the music while a college student and learned to play his great-grandfather's fiddle. The French frontier of North America described in today's history books as the Louisiana Purchase, began in the late 1600s, the Creole way of life traveling along the rivers to settle in the originally French midwest, once known as Upper Louisiana.

"Their songs were recorded on wax cylinders by song catchers decades ago and thought to have been lost forever," Stroughmatt said. "With the blessing of the Creole people of the midwest, we have become passionate ambassadors. The music will make your soul jump, your head spin and your heart be glad that the music is still here."

Stroughmatt is joined by bassist Rob Krumm, part French Creole, and his wife Jennifer Stroughmatt, whose family originally hailed from French Canada and traces its lineage back to the Celtic regions of northwestern France.

Future live programs include "Rural Missouri: A Crossroads of American Roots Music" on Oct. 17; "Memories of the Golden Age of Radio" on Oct. 24, and "Meet Me in Missouri" Nov. 6 and 7.

"New Harmonies" is funded by grants from the Missouri Arts Council, Missouri Humanities Council and the Finis M. Moss Charitable Trust. The Bushwhacker Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Special tours can be arranged by calling Ramsey at (417) 667-9602 or (417) 684-0085.