Peggy Seeger, a well-known feminist folksinger, folk instrumentalist and songwriter, will give both a concert and an interactive lecture/workshop while visiting Denison's campus. Seeger will speak on "A Feminist View of the Image of Women in Anglo-American Traditional Songs" at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday (April 4) in Burke Recital Hall. This interactive workshop explores the image and roles of women in Anglo-American songs dating from the 1600s onward. She compares the descriptive nature of traditional songs, which tend to reinforce gender stereotypes, with the prescriptive nature of contemporary songs, which challenge stereotypes and offer a means of solving the gender bind we find in ourselves.

Seeger will also perform traditional and contemporary songs while accompanying herself on various instruments such as the piano, guitar and banjo at 8 p.m. on Thursday (April 5) in Burke. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

Seeger's formal music education was interwoven with the family's interest in folkmusic. Born in New York City, she is the daughter of Ruth Crawford and Charles Seeger and the sister of Pete and Mike Seeger. She began to play the piano when she was 7 years old and between the ages of 12 and 35 she learned to play the guitar, five-string banjo, Autoharp, Appalachian dulcimer and English concertina. She left for Holland in 1955 and then took off on a world tour that included Russia, China, Poland, most of Europe and part of Africa. In 1959 she became a British subject and settled in London with Ewan MacColl, the British dramatist, singer and songwriter, by whom she had three children (Neill, Calum and Kitty).

Considered to be among North America's finest female folksingers, Seeger has taken a leading role in the British folkmusic revival, not only as a singer and instrumentalist but as a theorist and song writer, best known for her songs on nuclear and feminist issues. Her most famous song,Gonna Be an Engineer, is used by women in their struggle for equal rights. Seeger now resides in Asheville, N.C., and spends a good portion of her year singing and lecturing throughout the United States. She is the author ofThe Peggy Seeger Songbook, Warts and All,in which she places 150 of her songs in a setting of drawings, photographs and informative and autobiographical notes to create a picture of her life. She is in the process of preparingThe Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook,a long-awaited collection of 200 of Ewan MacColl's songs complete with introduction, biography, song notes discography and music notations. Her latest album isPeriod Pieces: Women's Songs for Men and Women, a compilation album of songs dealing with major feminist issues.

During her stay Seeger will also visit several classes such as Women in Music, Music and Sexuality, Bluegrass Ensemble and American Women's History.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

For press inquiries:

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