“This is not just Mawmaw and Pawpaw’s music. This is my music, just as it was theirs.”
Adeline Miller still remembers the first meter she became interested in work music .
“ When I first moved to Louisiana at five years erstwhile , I went to a muddle academic term , ” explains Miller , whose parents relocated to her father ’s native Bayou State from Vermont once they started a family . “ I saw a guy meet fiddle , and he was like , ‘ You should do it ! ’ ”
Today , Miller is one of the frontwomen of Amis du Teche , a band she begin a ten ago with acquaintance when she was just 12 to help preserve the custom of Cajun music and which is distinguish after the Bayou Teche waterway in her south Louisiana town of Breaux Bridge . Cajun music , hallmarked by accordion , fiddles , and Gallic lyric , is a music genre of folk music originating from the Acadians , now referred to as Cajuns , when they were exiled from Nova Scotia in the 18th one C .
Adeline Miller|Photo by Emma Broussard
Life was n’t exactly sluttish for them in Louisiana either , though . In the nineteenth and 20th centuries , verbalize French was to a great extent stigmatized , and Louisianans were promote to assimilate and learn English . In fact , the use of French in Louisiana school wasbannedin the Louisiana Constitution of 1921 . Recent decades , however , have control a revival of the French language . The Council for Development of French in Louisiana was established by the DoS law-makers in 1968 , renewing the local emphasis on Francophone custom . And as new generation seek to represent their inheritance , Cajun melodious traditions are birth a standardized renaissance amongst younger Louisianans .
“ It ’s not just thinking , ‘ This is Mawmaw and Pawpaw ’s music , ’ ” Miller explain . “ This is my music , just as it was theirs . I identify with this acculturation ; I identify with the euphony . This is my heritage , and this is my linguistic process . ”
That said , Amis du Teche makes the music of their ascendant their own . The dance orchestra does n’t have an accordion instrumentalist , an legal document at the center of most Cajun bands , and two woman go the band . Not to refer , their new album features five original Cajun call , not just their spin on the classic .
Adeline Miller|Photos by Emma Broussard and courtesy Adeline Miller
This is [ not just ] Mawmaw and Pawpaw ’s medicine . This is my music , just as it was theirs .
Like Miller , Luke Huval grew up immersed in Louisiana ’s medicine , the son of Gallic speakers . His parent met at a Cajun eating house where his beginner performed in a band . Huval larn how to flirt the fiddle and the piano accordion as a teenager and has been perform ever since . “ The music reflects me and my family and my citizenry , and it resonates with me , ” Huval enjoin . “ It find like a part of me and a part of us . That ’s why I think it ’s significant to keep playing it . ”
As such , many of his evenings are spent at local bar and restaurants , perform the same sounds he hear uprise up for a new generation of two - steppers .
Megan Brown Constantin|Photograph by David Simpson
The renaissance of Cajun medicine extends beyond the degree , too . Megan Brown Constantin is a Cajun musician , music teacher , and host of “ Encore , ” a receiving set show that highlight archived Cajun and Creole Music host at her alma mater , the University of Louisiana at Lafayette . Lafayette is the heart of Cajun Country in Louisiana . Located in the Acadiana region of the commonwealth , many of the resident physician ’s have Acadian heritage and make up a bulk of the state ’s French - speaking population .
Constantin did n’t develop up speaking French , but was immersed in the area ’s culture from a young age . Her grandparent owned a Cajun restaurant where local bands would toy , and it was a weekly occurrence for her sept to go dancing there as a family when she was growing up .
When she was a teenager , she learned her first French song to perform with her parent at a cultural camp in West Virginia . From there , she was hooked . When she returned home , she ascertain French so she could do even more Cajun Song dynasty , finally graduating with a degree in French . Soon after , she establish two 3 with college friends : T’Monde and Les Bassettes .
“ The little Cajun music bug prick me , ” says Constantin , who still execute today .
“ Encore ” airs on KRVS , a public radio post out of Lafayette that focuses on traditional Louisiana euphony styles ; she also teaches traditional Cajun and Creole music at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette . “ You ca n’t create genuinely without knowing where something come from , ” Constantin argues . “ Everybody has their own musical influences outside of traditional music , and so , you incorporate that as you start to make your own . ”
Meanwhile , Miller is presently on tour with Amis du Teche this summertime . execute display in Canada and the Northeastern United States , she is excited to bring a picayune bit of Acadiana to the residual of the mankind . “ Not everyone has something that ’s just sitting in their urban center , ” she says . “ They ’ll take an interest in this Cajun culture , but we live this stuff every twenty-four hour period . The young generation is rent citizenry know how special it is to live here . ”
