An extraordinary program of music was presented on December 12, 1944:

BALLAD SINGERS TO OFFER PANORAMA OF FOLK SONGS

Seated around a table on the stage of Northrop Auditorium the American Ballad Singers, led by Elie Siegmeister, composer and director, will be presented in concert by the University Artists course Tuesday evening.

Their program is a musical folk history of amazing variety.  It will include ballads of the American Revolution, songs of bad men, lovers, heroes, jailbirds, tollers, mountaineers, children – a veritable American panorama in song.

Director Siemeister, in gathering and arranging these songs, has gone to the people for his program material – to the mountains, prairies, cities and backwoods regions.  He has listened to Alabama cotton-pickers and the street peddlers of his native New York.

THE PROGRAM:

Music of Early America –

• Ode on Science
• Birds’ Courting Song
• Song of the Sea
• Deaf Woman’s Courtship
• Poor Wayfaring Stranger
• Children’s Games
• Sweet Betsy From Pike

Americans at Work –

• Hammer Ring
• Peg and Awl
• Pat Works on the Railroad
• Street Cries
• Cotton Dance Song

American Christmas Carols –

• A Virgin Unspotted
• Rise Up Shepherd An’ Foller
• Mary Had a Baby
• Twelve Days of Christmas

The Melting Pot –

• Upon a Mountain
• Cooper O’Fife
• Schlof Bobbell
• Finnegan’s Wake

Folk Songs of Today –

• I’m Sad and I’m Lonely
• The Devil and the Farmer’s Wife
• Chilly Winds
• Rye Whiskey