Henrietta Yurchenco, Pioneer Folklorist, Dies at 91 (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Henrietta Yurchenco, Pioneer Folklorist, Dies at 91

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: December 14, 2007

Henrietta Yurchenco, whose quest to save living music from the past took her
from the mountains of Guatemala and southern Mexico to a New York City radio
station to the Jewish community of Morocco, died Monday in Manhattan. She was
91.

The cause was lung failure, her son, Peter, said.

Like a linguist nailing down a dying language, Ms. Yurchenco, an
ethnomusicologist, recorded music from long ago that faced an unclear tomorrow.
In an interview, Pete Seeger said she “went to places people didn’t believe she
would be able to find.”

Among her thousands of recordings are ritual songs from North, South and Central
American Indians, including peyote chants, and music celebrating everything from
love to agriculture, found from Eastern Europe to the Caribbean to Appalachia to
Spain.

To access the full article, just follow the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/arts/14yurchenco.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin