Beverly Patterson
Beverly Patterson served as Executive Director of the North Carolina Folklife Institute from the time the Institute opened its offices in September 2004, until her retirement in June 2011. Formerly a folklife specialist at the North Carolina Arts Council, she continues to work with cultural institutions and traditional artists across the state. She consults on a wide variety of public folk arts projects ranging from heritage tourism trails and museum exhibits to publications, documentary films, conferences and other special events. She directed the Cherokee Heritage Trails project of the Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative and has managed a series of interpretive exhibits related to that project. She also coordinated and edited the Cherokee Artist Directory, supervised the writing and publication of the Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook, and contributed to the guidebook, Blue Ridge Music Trails: Finding a Place in the Circle. She did much of the fieldwork for her book, Sound of the Dove: Singing in Appalachian Primitive Baptist Churches, and its accompanying audio cassette, in the North Carolina mountains.
Email: bpatterson@ncfolk.org