French Creole Music

Performed by: Dennis Stroughmatt

May 21st at 2pm at the Geneseo Public Library

As a young man, Dennis Stroughmatt came upon the descendants of Midwestern settlers and spent over three years in southeast Missouri studying and learning to speak Illinois French Creole, play the fiddle, and sing many of the traditional songs that have permeated the region for over three hundred years.

Dennis finds himself in a unique position as one who can speak knowledgeably of and play in a variety of French Creole and Old-time Western musical styles. With an MA in history from SIU-Carbondale and a Certificate of French Quebecois Studies from the University of Quebec, Dennis is not only a musician but a passionate educator who entertains and teaches his audiences at the same time. Speaking engagements, residencies, and performances include The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, The Library of Congress, The Kennedy Center, The Missouri Folklore Society, and Festival Acadian in Lafayette, LA.

Hidden away in the Missouri Ozarks is a language and culture that has been studied by just a few scholars. Their songs, recorded on wax cylinders by song catchers decades ago and thought to have been lost forever, are still alive today, in sleepy little towns with names like Old Mines, Potosi, and Sainte Genevieve.

His great-grandfather’s fiddle in hand (though he didn’t know very well how to play,) Stroughmatt spent every free moment immersed in learning the old French language, the heritage and customs, and the oral traditions of these private people. It is a way of life which traveled more than 350 years ago across the ocean and made its way along the rivers to settle in the (originally French) Midwest, once known as Upper Louisiana.

He would also go on to live, work and play music in the “Cajun country” of Louisiana, and to study in Quebec, thus completing the circle of French culture in North America. A medley of music, language, stories, and culture secreted away in the Missouri Ozarks now has a voice in the tapestry of this world. With the blessing of the Creole people of the Midwest, Dennis Stroughmatt et l’Espirit Creole are its passionate ambassadors, expanding interest and excitement in a region that has been, in many ways, ignored by the history books.

Today, Dennis is joined by two musicians with Creole ancestry to bring this music to audiences across the continent, in a band that keeps alive the Creole Spirit, appropriately named Dennis Stroughmatt et l’Esprit Creole.

Please join us on May 21 at 2 pm at the library!  It’ll make your soul jump, your head spin, and your heart glad to know that the Creole spirit in music is here. As they say in the hills: “On est toujours icitte: We are still here!”