Wallace treated to performance

In Celebration of April as National Poetry Month and April 7-13 as National Library Week, Faith Memorial Library, Wallace Public School and Humanities Nebraska sponsored Humanities Nebraska performer Deb Greenblatt presenting James Whitcomb Riley, the Fiddling Children’s Poet to the Wallace community and the Wallace Public School students at the high school gym on April 9.

Greenblatt is a multi-talented performer, being a fiddler, composer, recording artist, author of fiddle tune books and a teacher of private lessons. She enjoys the “rhythms of fiddle tunes” found in James Whitcomb Riley’s poetry. 

She demonstrated those rhythms throughout her performance by using her guitar, viola pomposa (a five-string viola) and a falgelet (a one-hand wind instrument) to accompany and highlight the rhythms in the poetry. 

Greenblatt’s favorite instrument is the fiddle that she keeps handy “to play the tunes that make you think the devil’s in your toe.” The audience helped with gusto as she asked them to fill in words of repeated lines.

A reception at Faith Memorial Library followed the performance.