March 13, 2008

Faculty member’s recital features Appalachian folk music   

Appalachian folk songs will be the focus of a recital/lecture by Gail Dooley, soprano and associate professor of music at Morningside College, at 7:30 p.m. on March 30 in Eppley Auditorium, 3625 Garretson Avenue. The recital is free and open to the public.

In addition to singing Appalachian folk songs and ballads, Dooley will accompany herself on the Appalachian (mountain) dulcimer. Dooley also will discuss the origins of the songs, many of which were brought to the United States by emigrants from the British Isles.

“I grew up in the Appalachians in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina and heard these songs and the dulcimer as a child,” Dooley said. “However, I only recently started researching Appalachian folk songs and learning to play the dulcimer after seeing a documentary about a woman mountain singer who just so happens to live near my parents’ home in North Carolina.”

Dooley has been a member of the Morningside music faculty since 1995. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and her doctorate from Florida State University in Tallahassee.