Songcatcher is a 2000 drama film, directed by Maggie Greenwald. It is about a musicologist researching and collecting Appalachian folk music in the mountains of western North Carolina. Although Songcatcher is a fictional film, it is loosely based on the work of Olive Dame Campbell, founder of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.
Set in 1907, Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), a professor of musicology, impulsively visits ...
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Songcatcher is a 2000 drama film, directed by Maggie Greenwald. It is about a musicologist researching and collecting Appalachian folk music in the mountains of western North Carolina. Although Songcatcher is a fictional film, it is loosely based on the work of Olive Dame Campbell, founder of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.
Set in 1907, Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), a professor of musicology, impulsively visits her sister Eleanor (Jane Adams), who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia, following a denial in a promotion at the university where she teaches. There, she makes a discovery of her lifetime – a treasure trove of ancient Scots-Irish / Ulster Scots ballads, songs that have been handed down every generation, preserved intact by the seclusion of the mountains. With the goal of securing her promotion, Lily ventures into the most isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs. With the help of a musically talented orphan named Deladis...
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