Medallion Opera House Presents: The Ballad Lives

A NH Humanities To Go Event

Murder and mayhem, robbery and rapine, love that cuts to the bone: American ballads re-tell the wrenching themes of their English and Scottish cousins. Transplanted in the New World by Old World immigrants, the traditional story-song of the Anglos and Scots wound up reinvigorated in the mountains of Appalachia and along the Canadian border.  John Perrault talks, sings, and picks the strings that bind the old ballads to the new.

John earned his BA in English at Providence College, an MA in Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, and a JD at the Franklin Pierce Law Center. He taught high school English for 10 years in Kittery, Maine, and subsequently practiced law in Portsmouth for30 years. He is the author of Jefferson’s Dream, Here Comes the Old Man Now, The Ballad of Louis Wagner, and a recent CD compilation of ballads, Rock and Root. His poetry has appeared in Orbis (UK), The Salmon Poetry Anthology Dogs Singing, The Christian Science Monitor, Blue Unicorn, Commonweal, and elsewhere. John was Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2003-2005.