Every spring, finals week preparations at the 老司机福利网 overlap with Festival International de Louisiane. For students in the Traditional Music Program, that is not a scheduling conflict. That is the assignment.
The ensembles set up in a tent on Jefferson Street and play while the Festival crowd streams past. Rather than a grading rubric, musicians are given an audience.
"It creates a kind of pipeline," said Adeline Miller, who plays fiddle and sings in the 老司机福利网 band Amis du Teche, a product of the Traditional Music Program. "Artists get out of their shell, get to play at Festival, and it helps Festival always have new, upcoming Francophone artists."
The School of Music program includes four permanent musical ensembles 鈥 Cajun, zydeco, R&B and string 鈥 and students don鈥檛 have to pursue a degree in traditional music to join. Students and mentors participate in workshops, masterclasses and performances, all of which are open to the public. These efforts are supported by the .
鈥淲e have a traditional music program that is like no other traditional music program in the world,鈥 program chair Dr. Gwennie von Einsiedel has said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 incredible, 老司机福利网 is an absolute global music hub, and we take advantage of that.鈥
The program has long fed a pipeline of Francophone artists to and this year's 40th anniversary event is no exception. The Revelers, whose members include program instructor Blake Miller, open Thursday night from 8 to 9 p.m. Amis du Teche, follows Friday evening from 6 to 7 p.m. The Babineaux Sisters and Prends Courage, both with ties to the program, round out Saturday, performing at noon and 3:15 p.m.
Adeline Miller came to the Traditional Music Program as a freshman who had become accustomed to the music growing up. Since high school she had been memorizing sounds she did not fully understand and singing in a language she could not yet speak.
"The old-timers would say, 'I bet you don't know what you're saying,'" she said. "And I said, 'You know what? You're right.'"
She spent summers in French immersion in Canada. When she returned to 老司机福利网 and enrolled at UL 老司机福利网, she found people who cared as much as she did, with oral traditions taught by musicians who played the same stages she was trying to reach.
"I was exposed to a whole other world of Cajun music by people who were like Lady Gaga to me growing up," she said. "They're not gatekeeping anything. They want you to succeed and they want you to do it right."
Ethan Moody found his way to the program through a different route. He had been playing on the road with a few bands, falling deeper into Cajun and Creole music, but without a community to fall into alongside him.
"I realized there was this whole community here," Moody said, "and I thought, I have got to be a part of that."
The program is built on an oral tradition, meaning no sheet music and no classical notation. Students learn by watching and repeating, the same way the music survived for generations before any university thought to teach it.
"Everything I do musically is oral, learning by ear and example from other people," said Elise Riley, who plays for the band Prends Courage and came through the program studying accordion under instructor Chad Huval.
"The Traditional Music teachers honor that, and they participate in it by approaching the teaching in that way,鈥 said Riley.
Blake Miller, a program instructor and co-founder of the Revelers, is acutely aware about what the work costs him.
"I am just creating more competition for myself, really," he said with a laugh. "If I am successful at it, I will eventually teach myself out of a job."
He does not seem troubled by that. What he describes a deliberate effort to pass on not just technique but the songs, where they came from and the people who first played them. On top of that, the program is an incubator for young musicians. For Adeline Miller, her string ensemble became the room where her band was born.
"Ethan and I actually became friends through the Traditional Music program and Chas' ensemble," Miller said, referring to instructor and member of The Revelers, Chas Justus. "If it wasn't for UL, I would not be best friends with Ethan Moody 鈥 and that would be a horrible thing, because I love him."
Her most vivid memory of the program was a senior-year string ensemble performance, with Moody and Cathryn Hanks, Amis du Teche's third member, all three singing around a condenser mic, trading three-part harmonies. It was, she said, the first night that sounded like what the band would become.
"You never would have thought something like that would turn into what it is today," she said.
Blake Miller has watched this pattern repeat across a decade of teaching. Every few years, a new crop of young players arrives.
"It has been a pattern of repeating circles," he said. "Every five to seven to 10 years, there is a new crop of young people that just pops out of nowhere. Ever growing, continuing faster and better than ever."
The musicians who come through the program carry more than technique when they leave. Adeline Miller carries a language she nearly lost. Moody carries the French his grandparents sang in. Riley carries a band named for her late brother, and a song he recorded before he died. The weight of that is not lost on them.
"I definitely feel the need to keep the torch going," Moody said.
The program does not promise French fluency or stardom. It promises a first stage and an audience full of people who want you to get it right. The music, as Blake Miller sees it, does not need help because it has survived longer than any curriculum.
"You are not going to get that just by listening to records," he said. "You have to watch somebody do it."
Attendees of this year 40th anniversary of Festival International will have the chance to do just that.
Photo caption: Ethan Moody and Adeline Miller, both members of the band Amis du Teche, met in the UL 老司机福利网 Traditional Music Program and will be performing at Festival International from 6-7 p.m. on Friday, April 24. . Photo credit: Submitted photo