Born out of a ten-year collaboration between Kentucky poet Maurice Manning and Vermont composer Brendan Taaffe, The Bucolics Project reimagines Manning’s award-winning 2007 collection Bucolics as song. Each song is based on an archival recording of Eastern Kentucky singers like Addie Graham, Roscoe Holcomb, and Old Regular Baptist congregations. Manning rewrote the original poems to match the metrical structure of these source recordings and Taaffe then changed the music, resulting in songs that are based in tradition but also offer a renewal.

Performed by an all-star cast including Sarah Kate Morgan, Erin Shea Hogan, Sarah Gibson, Stefan Amidon, and Brendan Taaffe, The Bucolics Project encompasses ballads, hymns and fiddle tunes along with spoken word by Maurice and a ‘crankie’ (also known as a moving panorama, a crankie is an illustrated scroll cranked from one side to the other in a wooden puppet theater).

Creation of The Bucolics Project was made possible in part by a Research Fellowship from the Appalachian Sound Archives at Berea College and by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council.

This event will be held in the 1820 Meeting House located within the Village Center. Your ticket to the event provides daily admission to Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill.

General Admission: $25