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Legislation in 1979 (79-322, SB 1208) transferred the Florida Folk Arts component of the Stephen Foster Memorial to the Florida Department of State. Operating as the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs from ca. 1985 until 1995, the Bureau coordinated the annual Florida Folk Festival and directed such programs as Folk Arts Apprenticeships, Folk Arts in Education, Folk Heritage awards, annual research surveys, and numerous other projects and programs. From 1995 through June 30, 2021, the renamed and reorganized Florida Folklife Program continued the majority of these operations from within the Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Historic Preservation in Tallahassee. During the 1995 reorganization, the State Archives of Florida acquired the Florida Folklife Collection from the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs’ previously maintained Florida Folklife Archives. Legislation in 2021 (2021-71, L. O. F., HB 909) transferred the Florida Folklife Program and its operations from the Division of Historical Resources to the newly renamed Division of Arts and Culture, previously the Division of Cultural Resources, effective July 1, 2021. The program is charged to "identify, research, interpret, and present Florida folk arts, artists, performers, folklore, traditions, customs, and cultural heritage and make folk cultural resources and folklife projects available throughout the state."
One component of the Florida Folklife Program was the production of several radio series, including Voices of Florida and Music from the Sunshine State.
Voices of Florida was researched and produced between 2000 and 2007 by the Florida Folklife Program, with the majority of fieldwork conducted by Folklorist Robert Stone and Tina Bucuvalas. Voices of Florida's final product was eight half-hour radio portraits featuring Floridians throughout the state sharing their personal stories and cultural expressions. Each of the eight episodes, Cattle Ranching, Wooden Boats, South Florida Cuban Community, South Florida Haitian Community, Southeast Asian Communities in Central Florida, Tarpon Springs Area Greek Community, Sacred Steel, and Technofolk, highlighted one of Florida's many diverse cultural and folk communities.
Music from the Sunshine State was a series of programs that presented the musical traditions of Floridians, highlighting the large variety of Florida's cultures and communities through music. Genres of music featured included fiddling, bluegrass, gospel, and blues. Also highlighted was music from Pacific Island, Mexican, Cuban, and Caribbean communities throughout Florida. Also presented in these radio features were interviews with featured artists. Between 2006 through 2008, the Bureau of Florida Folklife tasked folklorist Robert Stone to head a project to compile selected songs from the radio series into an album of Florida folk music.
Summary:
This series consists of records from radio projects conducted by the Florida Folklife Program. Records for the radio projects include fieldwork notes, depositor agreements, interview transcripts, script drafts, and audio logs. Also included in this collection are disc recordings of the program, including draft recordings, and minidiscs of raw audio, such as interviews and background ambience recorded on location.
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Folder listing available.
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Associated Materials:
For materials on the Music from the Sunshine State album project, see series S2384, Music from the Sunshine State Album Project records.
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Electronic Records Access:
Subject Access Fields:
Stone, Robert L.
Florida Folklife Program
Cuban Americans. Greeks Florida Folk music Florida Bluegrass music Florida Ranches Florida. Folklife. Folk art Florida
Machine-readable artifacts. aat Audio recordings. Compact disks. aat Interviews. aat Field notes. aat
Tarpon Springs (Fla.) Miami (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.)
for detailed listing.