Join the Handshouse Studio on Saturday, August 10 and Sunday, August 11 for The Banjo Project, which includes a hands-on display of gourd banjos and the process of making them.



Then on Saturday, August 10 at 2 p.m., listen to the sounds that come from a gourd banjo with a special performance by banjoist and fiddler Jake Blount in the Museum’s Liberty Hall. This special performance is free with Museum admission.



About Gourd Banjos

​The gourd banjo is an object whose history ranges from the early 17th-century to the 21st-century and is embedded in the stories of race, labor, class and gender in America. This special hands-on display will feature gourd banjo replicas to touch and strum, examples of the raw materials that gourd banjos are assembled from, live demonstration of the processes used to make parts of the gourd banjo and how the instruments might have been played.

About the Handshouse Studio

Handhouse Studio, based in Norwell, Massachusetts, is a non-profit, innovative, educational organization that creates adventures hands-on projects through community service. They initiates adventures and hands-on projects as a way to explore history, understand science, and perpetuate the arts.



About Jake Blount

Jake is a fiddler, banjoist, singer and scholar based in Takoma Park, Maryland. He centers and venerates his racial and ethnic heritage through his approach to music and its history. In 2016, he became the first Black performer to make his way to the finals of the prestigious Appalachian String Band Music Festival and was the first to win in the traditional band category.



What was the soundtrack of 18th-century America? Join us every Saturday between July 13 through August 17, starting at 11 a.m., for a variety of free musical performances and hands-on demonstrations on our Plaza and inside the Museum.