Here is some more symposium info. I find it very curious that with less than 2 weeks to go till the festival, there is not more discussion. Isn't there usually more chatter going on at this point?

*****
"MUSIC of the SEA"
Mystic Seaport's 30th Annual Symposium
Co-Sponsored by Mystic Seaport, the United States Coast Guard Academy, and the University of Connecticut at Avery Point
Schedule

Friday, June 12, Dimick Auditorium, Coast Guard Academy

10:00 - 11:30 Sea Music and Distant Peoples
Dan Lanier and Vincent Reid - Serendipitous Visitors: An Appreciation of Barrouallie Whalers and Shanties
Talitha MacKenzie - Hero Sailors and Fantastical Boats: Nautical References in the Scottish Gaelic Waulking Song
Martin and Shan Graebe - Sabine Baring-Gould - Songs and Stories from the Sea
Glenn S. Gordinier - Moderator

11:30 - 1:00 Lunch Break

1:00 - 2:30 19th-Century Seafaring Culture
Christopher Smith - "Dancing for Eels on the Catherine Wharf": Afro- and Irish-American Musical Interactions in the Age of Sail
Elizabeth Spoden - "Come all ye bold seamen ": Defining Sailor Masculinity Through Song
Stephen Sanfilippo - "Her Bright Eyes Still Haunt Me": Hard Work and Romantic Reality: The Songs of Melvin P. Halsey, Long Island Whaleman
Glenn S. Gordinier - Moderator

2:30 - 3:00 Break

3:00 - 4:30 The Sea and Music
Edward Green - The Music of Obsession; or Moby Dick: a Study of
Bernard Herrmann's 1938 Cantata
Karen and Robert Madison - Simon over the Lee: Robin Hood at Sea:
Joseph Ritson's "The Noble Fisher-Man; or, Robin Hood's Preferment"
Heather Wood - Rudyard Kipling: Chronicler of the Sea, Ships, and Sailors
Faye Ringel - Moderator

Saturday, June 13, Greenmanville Church, Mystic Seaport Museum

9:30 - 10:15
Paul Krejci - FROM SKIN DRUMS TO SQUEEZE BOXES AND BEYOND
Musical Impact of the Commercial Whalers and Traders in the Beaufort Sea from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day
Glenn S. Gordinier - Moderator

10:30 - 12:00
Panel - MUSIC of the SEA: Thirty Years of Study and Conversation
Stuart Frank
Craig Edwards
Dick Swain
Robert Walser


Presenters:

Craig Edwards took his degree in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University and has been a long-time performer and recording artist of traditional music and song. A founding member of Forebitter, Edwards has also served as director of past Sea Music Festivals.

Stuart M. Frank created the Sea Music Festival and Music of the Sea Symposium while on the staff at Mystic Seaport. A respected scholar, recording and performing artist, Dr. Frank has long been considered a leading authority in the field of sea music and seafaring culture.

Glenn S. Gordinier teaches for the University of Connecticut and is the Robert G. Albion Historian at Mystic Seaport where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. A one-time Mystic Seaport chanteyman, he has served as moderator for this symposium since 1981.

Dr. Edward Green is an award-winning composer who teaches at Manhattan School of Music and at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City. He is also the editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington.

Shan Graebe's involvement in traditional music began in her grandfather's pub in South London. She has performed in various concerts and on the BBC and has recorded two separate albums, largely based on the Baring-Gould collection, with her husband Martin.

Martin Graebe came to the English folk revival while at University. Leaders in that movement have recorded a number of his original songs. Since 1992, he has researched, published, performed, and recorded music of the Sabine Baring-Gould collection.

Paul R. Krejci is working on his dissertation at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. With advanced degrees in music and in philosophy, he has also performed in a variety of musical genres. His research involves musicultural change and globalization among indigenous peoples.

Dan Lanier is an environmental professional with training in chemistry and geology. He is a Mystic Seaport chantey veteran and has worked closely with indigenous groups and their maritime heritage including Eskimo from Alaska. Dan founded the non-profit Barrouallie Whaler's Project, Inc.

Karen Lentz Madison taught at Maryland's Loyola College after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Having published on a variety of subjects, her current work, along with her husband, is on James Fenimore Cooper.

Robert Madison, was a chanteyman at Mystic Seaport during the age of sail . . . almost. Having served on the faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy for many years, he now teaches at the University of Arkansas.   His presentation is in conjunction with Karen Lentz Madison.

Talitha MacKenzie currently teaches at Edinburgh Napier University and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. A long-time performer and teacher of music and dance, she was on the chantey staff at Mystic Seaport before the first Sea Music Festival.

Dr. Faye Ringel has recently retired from the faculty at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy where she taught English and Humanities courses. Having performed and recorded, she is particularly drawn to traditional tunes, bawdy ballads, and ragtime piano.

Stephen Sanfilippo of Long Island and the coast of Maine is a long-time performer and interpreter of sea music. He is currently working on his dissertation for SUNY Stony Brook which focuses on religion as expressed in the journals and songs of Yankee whale men.

Professor Christopher J. Smith teaches musicology and ethnomusicology at the Texas Tech University School of Music. With a wide-ranging interest in traditional music and cultures, his current book project deals with artist and musician, William Sydney Mount.

Elizabeth Spoden has just completed her Master's Degree at Indiana University-Purdue University. She has worked at a variety of museums including those in Newport, Salem, Indianapolis, Chicago and London.

Dick Swain is the Director of Library Services at West Chester University's Francis Harvey Green Library. With many years as a scholar of traditional music to his credit, he is also an accomplished musician who has performed in a variety of traditional styles

Robert J. Walser, ex Mystic Seaport chanteyman, took his Ph.D. at the University of London. He has recorded and performed widely and has carried out original work in archival organization and sea music scholarship for the Library of Congress and the University of Aberdeen.

Heather Wood was a founding member of the U.K.'s "Young Tradition" and as such was at the center of the Folk Revival. Her distinguished career as a performer relates closely to her long affiliation with the works of Rudyard Kipling.