Ellen Stekert

Ellen Stekert is something more than a folksinger, or even a folk song collector -- though she has done both of those things across a 50-plus-year career that has carried her from academia to music and back again, more than once. Born in New York City in 1935, she was raised in Great Neck on Long Island, where she developed an interest in folk music (and other hand-me-down traditions involving stories and perceptions) as a teenager. While a philosophy major at Cornell University, she also became a singer, exploring the practical side of the music traditions that she was resear...