Mississippi Bound...Again!

Hi Friends,
I've been on a little hiatus managing winter, the cold and a car accident. I'm doin' really well though and back to writing again which always makes me happy.

When I got back from Mississippi I found a group of people who could help me understand the breadth of my experiences at the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology located here at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Long story short, I ended up realizing that I wanted to continue my artistic development in Mississippi and decided to apply for a graduate studies. I have been accepted and, much to my surprise, I'll be starting graduate school full time in September 2009...this year. I am very, very excited to have this opportunity and to be willing to give it to myself. So what does this have to do with Mississippi...well, I'll be focusing my thesis on the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band of North Mississippi. For the first time in the lineage of that style of blues music the fifer is a young woman named Sharde Thomas.

After 24 years in Social Work it is quite a thing to realize that I want to dedicate my life to music. My new motto...if it doesn't have music in the title I don't want to do it!

I've also made application for some music grants and have had a blast working on my 3 song demo with don benedictson and Christian Dugas. The songs turned out great now we wait to find out if the coffers will open for a brand new CD project. I'm very excited that this will happen for us. Positive thinking.

I hope you are well and that you'll drop me an email at: katdanser@shaw.ca so we can keep in touch with each other.

xo Kat