Name: Arkansas Women in Music
Start: 2025-03-30T14:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-03-30T16:00:00-05:00
Location: Old State House Museum

The Arkansas Women's History Institute invites you to a program about Arkansas women in music on Sunday, March 30, 2025, with Stephen Koch and Katherine Strause, as they talk about their book: From Almeda To Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song.
2:00-4:00 pm
Hosted by the Old State House Museum
Light refreshments.
Free.

From Almeda to Zilphia profiles 30 artists who've influenced music around the world in ways we're still discovering. Despite their collective cultural impact, these women's stories have too often been overlooked, forgotten, or never told. Part history, part art, and part music, the book features a wide cross-section of inspirational creatives across the decades. With surprises like Maya Angelou's side career as a calypso singer and Carrie Cash, who recognized that her son, Johnny, had "the gift," From Almeda To Zilphia covers a wide variety of musical styles, including those of Gospel with Rosetta Tharpe, Opera with Marjorie Lawrence, Blues with Sippie Wallace, Folk Ballads with Almeda Riddle, Dance & Pop with Beth Ditto, Classical with Florence Price, and Country with K.T. Oslin.
Working from often hard-to-find historic photographs, vivid portraits by renowned artist Katherine Strause of the women profiled make plain the strength and artistry of these cultural pioneers. With a thoughtful forward by professor Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch and a heart-wrenching afterword by acclaimed country music songwriter Erin Enderlin, From Almeda To Zilphia is written by musician and award-winning journalist Stephen Koch, writer and host of the syndicated public radio program Arkansongs.

Author Info.:
Stephen Koch is an award-winning journalist in both broadcasting and print. Author of "Louis Jordan: Son of Arkansas, Father of R&B," he's also writer/host of “Arkansongs,” heard on public radio stations all across Arkansas, in east Texas and Louisiana.

Katherine Strause is a painter living in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is currently the Artist in Residence at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. She is also a 2023-2024 Catalyze Fellow with the Mid-America Art Alliance. From 2007 until 2022 she served as Professor of Painting and Chair of the Art Department at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arkansas Little Rock, and a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.