Eriksen, Tim Eriksen

Tim EriksenTim Eriksen is one of the most recognizable voices in American folk music. He knows how to evoke the long and mysterious history of America’s roots, the secret record of our trials and loves, handed down over generations. Singing of grit and heartache, of wandering and faith, the singer, scholar, and multicultural multi-instrumentalist turns even the most staid tradition into a buzzing revelation, with compelling instrumentation and a soaring voice that is both spot-on and raw.
A seasoned performer and academically trained ethnomusicologist (he holds a degree from one of the best programs of its kind at Wesleyan University), Eriksen has found new sides to old songs, unearthed forgotten ballads and tunes, and brought them to radically new places, including the acclaimed feature film Cold Mountain, for which he worked with producer T Bone Burnett. He has been a major figure in renewing interest in the distinctly American four-part shape-note singing tradition, a music based in European American hymnody, but with distinctive harmonies and powerful vocals.He is a founder of what is currently the world’s largest Sacred Harp singing convention, in Northampton, MA. In the words of Paste Magazine editor Josh Jackson, “no one has done more to help revive Sacred Harp singing among a younger generation.” Eriksen’s committed, tuneful, yet completely unfussy singing style reflects this foundation.
Eriksen has taught college courses including American Balladry, Global Sounds, Film Music from Hollywood to Bollywood, American Music, and Songwriting at Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Smith College, The University of Minnesota, Hampshire College and Wesleyan University. In addition, he has taught hundreds of hour- to week-long workshops and seminars in shape-note harmony singing, ballad singing and instrumental accompaniment at festivals, universities, museums and arts centers, including the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University, the Society for Ethnomusicology Convention, Colours of Ostrava Festival (Czech Republic), Camp Fasola (Anniston, AL) and the Early Music Festival in Jaroslaw, Poland. His students have ranged from a group of kindergarteners at an inner city school in Portland, Oregon to Nicole Kidman, Elvis Costello, Sting and a group of fifty Romanian extras in the film Cold Mountain and the senior citizen members of the now legendary Young at Heart Chorus.
http://timeriksenmusic.com