|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Our HistoryPatty McCollom, President of The Living Tradition, has written the following short history of The Living Tradition. In the future, this history might be expanded to include additional information. Click here to view a PDF file of the first version of this history. A
Brief History of The Living Tradition December 21, 1994 was the official launch date for The
Living Tradition as a non-profit organization, but the organization actually
started 12 years earlier. In 1982, Carolyn
Russell started hosting informal concerts and dances at her home in Garden
Grove, California. Many of us remember
going to Carolyn’s house on warm summer evenings to hear talented performers
and to do contra dancing on the patio. Since the informal inception of The Living Tradition in
1982, to this writing in 2019, there have been four Concert Coordinators. Carolyn Russell was the first Concert
Coordinator and Dance Coordinator from 1982 until 1998, when she retired from
active involvement in the organization and moved to Lucerne Valley. At that point, Steve and Michele Dulson took
over as Concert Coordinators. After eleven
years, they turned over the Concert Coordinator position to Gary and Terri
Trobridge, who had previously assisted as volunteers for a concert series in
Texas. Gary and Terri managed The Living
Tradition concerts for seven years from 2010 through 2016. At the end of 2016, they turned the concert series
coordination over to Ron Bloom and Carol Schryver Bloom, who served as Concert Coordinators
through 2022. There have been five Dance Coordinators from 1982 to this writing in 2019. The first Coordinator was Carolyn Russell, followed by Rich Di Marco. When Rich moved out of the area, Lynn Ricketts became the third Dance Coordinator until a job transfer took her to Florida in 2016. Patty McCollom served as the fourth Dance Coordinator from 2017 until 2022. In 2023 Michael Frey assumed the role of Dance Coordinator. An outgrowth of the monthly concerts and dances was the
request by local musicians to have a monthly music jam where beginners as well
as seasoned pros could make music together in an informal setting. To my knowledge, there have been only two Jam
Coordinators: Emil Olguin and myself, Patty McCollom. The jams currently meet from 2 to 4:30 PM on
the 2nd Saturday of the month at
Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Fullerton. These jams feature everything from Celtic
music to Blues to Old-Time American music. Many thanks to all of the volunteers who have worked
tirelessly on behalf of The Living Tradition, so we can continue providing high-quality
concerts, dances, and jams to our community.
The
Living Tradition Timeline
Dance
and Concert Locations
·
Carolyn Russell’s Garden Grove Home (dances
and concerts)
·
Anaheim Arts Center on Harbor Blvd. (Saturday
dances; hall subsequently torn down)
·
Ball Junior High in Anaheim (Saturday dances
and concerts)
·
Woman’s Club of Bellflower (Friday dances)
·
Rebekah Hall in El Segundo (Friday
dances)
· Anaheim Downtown Community Center (Saturday dances, concerts, and jams)
·
Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Fullerton (Saturday jams) Sources Dulson, S., Romano, B., & Romano, J. “Featured Organization-The Living Tradition” [PDF file]. Folkworks January/February 2001: p. 13. Web. <http://folkworks.org/FWIssues/FWv01n01/FWv01n01.pdf>. S. Dulson,
personal communication, Aug. 5, 2019. L. Ricketts,
personal communication, Nov. 11, 2018. T.
Trobridge, personal communication, March 30, 2019.
|