America’s Banjo Legacy with Dom Flemons
Music and Performing Arts Library
October 7, 2026
5:00-6:30
Dom Flemons, one of the country’s leading banjo scholars and performing artists, will provide a spell-binding performance discussion about America’s rich black banjo legacies to help kick off this year’s Folk and Roots Festival. He is a musician based in the Chicago area and famously known as “The American Songster®” because his repertoire covers over one hundred years of American roots music – everything from country, folk, and bluegrass to Americana and the blues.
His performance discussion will also highlight some of the Sousa Archives historic banjos from its Old Town School of Folk Music Banjo Exhibition Records and Samuel Swaim Stewart Banjo Collection which may include an 1895 American Princess banjo, an 1894 Presentation Banjeurine, and a 1920 Majestic 6-string banjo. In addition three other historic banjos from the Center’s collections will be on display in the exhibit, “America’s 5-string Banjo Legacy.”
This program is sponsored by the University of Illinois Library’s Sousa Archives and Center for American Music and the Music and Performing Arts Library. For further information contact Scott Schwartz at schwrtzs@illinois.edu or Kate Lambaria at lambari1@illinois.edu.