CAN is co-hosting with Appalachians for Appalachia for this year’s Big Ideas Festival! This is a multi-day virtual event on August 25th, 27th, & 29th with opportunities to join in-person after parties. BIF is all about connection and celebration where communities, funders, artists, and institutions & practitioners can come together to build a shared future grounded in local wisdom, healing, and joy. This is a space open to all and held with care for meaningful exchange, creative collaboration, and strategic visioning.
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Monday, Aug. 25th Keynote Speaker
Rethinking the Narrative: Stories That Shape Us, Stories That Free Us, 12:00-12:45pm
From ancestral memory to future-making, our stories are blueprints of belonging, healing, resistance, and transformation. This keynote explores how reimagining narratives can make space for more just, inclusive, and rooted futures, where community wisdom, lived experience, and cultural continuity become the foundation for lasting change.
Bio: Kiran Singh Sirah is an award-winning storytelling artist, folklorist, and thought leader based in Johnson City, TN. For more than two decades, he has established arts, cultural, and human rights initiatives which have received recognition from UNESCO, the White House, the United Nations, and the European Commission. He has spoken at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, the Pentagon, the US State Department, and numerous arts assemblies. Kiran has been a creative thought leader on projects with the Smithsonian, the League of American Orchestras, Google Arts & Culture, Dollywood, the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, the American Folklore Society, South Arts, NASA, and the National Endowments for Arts & Humanities.
As the Founder and Creative Lead for Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, Kiran harnesses the art of storytelling to create intimate healing and justice spaces to build dialogue, agency, and change for communities, on their own terms. The initiative builds on decades of lived, researched, and tested approaches that leverages stories as humanity’s birthright to build a socially just present and future world. https://www.kiransinghsirah.net/
Wednesday, Aug. 27th Keynote Speakers
The American Songster Guide to Appalachian Music Appreciation, 11:20-12:50pm
Join Dom and Vania Kinard in a conversation about their music connections, research, stories, collaborations, and touring adventures throughout the Appalachian regions. Dom and Vania will share their insights on the historical Black String Band figures, contemporary connections including the Black Banjo Gathering in 2005 and 2010 along with Dom’s work with Black in Appalachia. They’ll have a deeper conversation about Appalachian black country music pioneers like Lesley Riddle, Arnold Shultz, Carl Martin, Howard Armstrong, Nathan Frazier, Frank Patterson, Jimmie Strother, and many other lesser known figures. Attendees will get to hear about some of Dom’s exciting collaborations including a once-in-a-lifetime trip to West Virginia for Yo-Yo Ma’s Project “Our Common Nature” and Tyler Childers groundbreaking album “Long Violent History”. The American Songster Guide to Appalachian Music Appreciation Keynote will take festival attendees on a journey through Dom’s music career in the region, it’ll educate anyone who wants a deeper dive into the music history, and the conversation will be sure to include all the positive experiences he had directly within the community. The Keynote will include discussions, photos, videos, and music along with a Q&A.
Bio: Dom Flemons is known as “The American Songster®” since his repertoire covers over one hundred years of American roots music. He has won a GRAMMY Award and has two-EMMY nominations. He has been inducted into the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame in the Class of 2025 and won the International Acoustic Music Award. Flemons is a folk musician, black country artist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music scholar, historian, actor, slam poet, record collector, curator, podcaster, cultural commentator, influencer, and the creator, host, and producer of the American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville, TN. He is the Co-Founder and original member of the groundbreaking Carolina Chocolate Drops, the first ever black string band to win a GRAMMY Award. Over the past 25 years, he has received major awards, gained world-wide media recognition and has become one of the most influential and highly decorated voices in American roots music. Visit theamericansongster.com and follow on social media @domflemons and @carolinachocolatedrops.
Bio: Vania Kinard is Dom Flemons wife, manager, and creative collaborator at American Songster Productions. She is a consultant, digital creator, curator, entrepreneur, photographer, producer, world traveler, and writer. Vania is a Co-Host and Producer on the American Songster Radio Show which airs on WSM. She is currently serving as the Treasurer on the Board of Directors for Folk Alliance Region Midwest (FARM). Her curatorial experience includes working with the Artistic Director at the 2020 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada on an exhibit at the Western Folklife Center called African American Western Pioneers: Past and Present. Recently, she was the Curator of the Westward Bound: African American Country Music History & Cowboy Lore exhibit, which included a comprehensive collection of artifacts, photographs, and items that were on display at the Berkeley Public Library in 2024.Visit www.vaniakinard.com and follow on social media @vaniakinard.