Grammy-Nominated Band to Perform at Cajun Culture Symposium

Lost Bayou Ramblers, an acclaimed Grammy–nominated Cajun band hailing from Lafayette, La., will perform in concert on Saturday, February 23 at 8 p.m. in Severance Great Hall. The performance is free and open to the public.

The concert is the culminating event in a special symposium taking place February 21–23 at the College. Entitled “Being Cajun in the Early 21st Century” and hosted by the department of French and Francophone studies, the symposium will bring together leading experts in the field for a compelling interdisciplinary discussion of the definition and survival of Cajun culture, including the status of post-Katrina South Louisiana and how Cajuns define themselves today.

Stephanie Cox, visiting professor of French and Francophone studies at Carleton, planned the three-day event as a supplement to her “Faces of Marginality in Francophone America: Quebec and Louisiana” class. “The constant need to promote this culture as a means of survival has pushed Cajun identity into a compromised situation,” she explains. “After several decades of surviving through the process of acculturation, both forced and natural, the Cajun culture’s hybrid constitution is still being defined.” The symposium will ask such questions as: What is truly Cajun anymore? Are Cajuns buying the stereotypes of themselves? And, is the French language a necessary part of its authenticity or its survival?

The conference begins Thursday, February 21 in the Gould Library Athenaeum with a panel discussion from 4:30 to 6 p.m. featuring guest speakers Barry Jean Ancelet, Cajun culture folklorist, musicologist, French poet and author (under the pen name Jean Arceneaux) and professor in the Francophone studies department at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; Erik Charpentier, a Québécois documentary film maker and writer originally from Montreal and presently a post-doctorate researcher at the Center for Cultural & Eco-tourism at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; and David Chéramie, poet and executive director of the CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana), a state agency devoted to preserving Louisiana’s French culture. The symposium continues on Friday, February 22 with a poetry reading in French at the Headley House from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Capping off the symposium on Saturday, February 23 is an exciting presentation and performance by Lost Bayou Ramblers. Hailing from Lafayette—considered the heart of Cajun country—the band recently received a Grammy Award nomination for their release entitled Live: Á La Blue Moon (Swallow Records). Lost Bayou Ramblers is part of a new wave of bands accredited with a revival in Cajun pride. In fact, there are so many new, young Cajun bands in Louisiana that the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, which hosts the annual New Orleans Jazzfest, launched a separate Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Festival last year. 2008 also marks the first year the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has honored a Zydeco or Cajun band with its own Grammy category.

Lost Bayou Rambler’s definitive sound captures the roots of their unique Cajun sound with a vast repertoire of original songs and pre-century fiddle and accordion tunes. Since 1999, the band has performed their “deep swamp beat” around Acadiana and across the United States and Europe. Lost Bayou Ramblers is composed of brothers Andre Michot (lap steel and accordion) and Louis Michot (fiddle and vocals), along with Chris Courville (drums), Cavan Carruth (guitar and vocals), and Alan LaFleur (upright bass). More information on the band can be found at www.lostbayouramblers.com.

The concert, which begins at 8 p.m. in Severance Great Hall, will be preceded by a multi-media presentation by Lost Bayou Ramblers along with Kevin Fontenot, specialist in Louisiana history at Tulane University and co-author of “Accordions, Fiddles, Two Step & Swing: A Cajun Music Reader” (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2006). The presentation, entitled “Birth and Evolution of Cajun Music,” will take place from 6 to 7 p.m. in Great Hall. Both the presentation and the dance are free and open to the public.

For more information and disability accommodations, call the department of French and Francophone studies at (507) 222-4252.