Music of Iowa - Ethnic Musicians and Groups

Ethnic Musicians and Groups

Performing Yiddish and Israeli folks music, the Java Jews are a (Jewish) Klezmer group based in Des Moines. Performed at the 2003, 2004 Iowa State Fair.

Foot-Notes of Decorah began playing Scandinavian-American old time dance music in 1991 under the leadership of fiddler Beth Hoven Rotto. Foot-Notes maintains an oral tradition of tunes passed down by old time fiddlers in the "borderlands" around Decorah, Iowa, and Spring Grove, Minnesota, most prominent of these fiddlers being Bill Sherburne, a notable Norwegian-American fiddler who died at age 90 in 1991. Rotto apprenticed with Sherburne and learned his complete repertoire of old-time tunes before his passing. The band continues a tradition of playing for community dances in a rustic 1911 vintage two-room schoolhouse in Highlandville, Iowa, where such dances began in the mid-1970s with the music of Bill Sherburne and his band. Foot-Notes music has been featured on Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa public radio and Norwegian national radio programs. The group was selected to represent the State of Iowa at the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife in 1996 and the Festival of Iowa Folklife in Des Moines that same year.

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