Sugar Maple Concert Series – Jake Blount

Jake Blount is a performer and scholar of Black folk music based in Providence, RI. Initially recognized for his skill as a string band musician, Blount has synthesized his scholarly and artistic pursuits into a diverse performance practice that has taken him to Carnegie Hall, Newport Folk Festival, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and beyond. His albums, released on Free Dirt Records and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, have been featured in best-of lists from NPR, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone.

Jake served as a music consultant for the movie Sinners, and performed on the soundtrack of Ken Burns’s The American Revolution. Blount holds an A.M. in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from Brown University, where he is working toward a Ph.D. in the same and a second master’s degree in Anthropology.