Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology Calendar

Larry & Joe are a musical duo currently based in the Triangle of North Caroline. Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe's acclaimed "latingrass" band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants.

Both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, guitar, maracas and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. The program they offer features a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce.

Schedule:

Thursday August 31st, 2023

Workshop 2: 3:00 pm -5:00 pm - BG Rock Academy - FAC Recital Hall (189) - 1.5 for demo and 30 minutes for questions

Larry & Joe will teach students a two-chord gabán, a fundamental rhythmic and harmonic structure of la música llanera in 6/8. Students will learn how strings are used percussively through muting and golpes to create the iconic joropo feel. Though they will use the cuatro (an instrument intrinsically bound to the Venezuelan identity) as a teaching tool, this language is translatable to other string instruments like the banjo.