Celebrating a Decade of Discovery: The Listeners Circle

Stories

Macavine Hayes and Captain Luke, Winston-Salem, NC. 1997. Tim Duffy.
"Once a month or so, I get a happy little surprise. A whole CD of fantastic music in my mailbox by some artist I would have never discovered on my own. And it's always great. Thanks, MMF." Henry Slyker, Longtime Listeners Circle Supporter & MMF Board Member

 Ten years ago was a very special year for me. I had the opportunity to intern at MMF for one year. This was a formative year for me. With my friend Simon, we came all the way from France to volunteer and this experience was a huge part of what we became as men. Simon studied photography with Tim as a mentor and never left the camera. For me, most of my primary work was to digitize hundreds of tapes to store them in the MMF digital archive. I had the opportunity to listen to thousands of hours of unpublished tracks. This gave me more knowledge of the music itself as well as of the recording process involved in field recording. You never know what the next tape will bring to your ears. And sometimes, it is so immersive, the sound so warm, that you feel you are in the room with everyone, enjoying the moment.

This is the experience we wanted to share with supporters. I was in charge of building up the first playlists. Now, it’s been ten years.

As a professional musician, I then discovered another approach to the archive: we created an original project with Simon and our friend Clément which is called Grotto Sessions. Using acapella and archive material associated with original music, the Grotto Sessions pay tribute to the MMF and its artists. The second album is on the way.

I am glad MMF carried on this project for this long. It illustrates the importance of archiving to protect our cultural heritage and is also a wonderful way to make music resonate through time.

– Raphaël Evrard

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