Note to Editors: For advance interviews with Bart Plantenga contact Sam Fuqua at (303) 449-4885 or sam@kgnu.org.
Two yodeling musicians and the author of a comprehensive book on yodeling will perform and discuss the centuries-old Alpine tradition in a free public event at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Monday, April 18.
The event titled "Yodeling in the American West and Around the World" will be held at 7 p.m. in the Ramaley Biology building, room C250, and is presented by the CU-Boulder Center of the American West and KGNU Community Radio. One area to be explored is how yodeling made its way into American country music.
Bart Plantenga, author of "Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World" will speak on "Yodeling: Ululation Between Spurs, Spirit and Elation." Plantenga's book is the first to treat yodeling as a global phenomenon. He lives in Amsterdam and has worked in radio for almost two decades in addition to writing about music and culture.
Plantenga will be joined by Professor Jack Collom, a prolific and distinguished poet and a yodeling aficionado, of Boulder-based Naropa University. Collom will perform part of his spoken-word piece, "Blue Yodel, Blue Heron."
The event also will feature yodeling by Western musicians Liz Masterson and Sean Blackburn of Denver. Masterson has been yodeling since 1982 and has taught "How to Yodel" workshops at festivals, music camps and folksong societies throughout the United States and Canada.
Masterson and Blackburn have performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Center in New York City, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. They have performed together since 1988 and have recorded six CDs.
Sam Fuqua, news and public affairs director for KGNU radio in Boulder and the producer of several radio specials on yodeling, will make introductory remarks.
The event will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
For more information about Masterson and Blackburn visit or call (303) 433-4949. For more information on the April 18 Center of the American West event call (303) 492-4879 or visit .