"For us it was about exploring the idea of what music is and has been in Kachemak Bay," said Holly Cusack-McVeigh, curator of anthropological collections.

"New Harmonies" and a local companion exhibit, "Melodies of Kachemak Bay: A Celebration of Our Musical Traditions," opened Nov. 13 at the Pratt Museum, and remain on exhibit through Dec. 20.

Linking the national with the local is the kind of challenge a graduate student can dig into for a class project which is exactly what University of Toronto student Robi Harris did for a course in exhibitions. Harris, a student in the Ontario, Canada, university's master of arts program in museum studies, worked last summer as an intern at the Pratt, and curated "Melodies of Kachemak Bay." Raised in Lexington, Ky., and with a bachelor of arts degree from Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Harris has an interest in the educational component of museums. When he began researching internship opportunities, he found the Pratt.

"It had everything I was interested in," Harris said. "I was able to get my hands into many aspects of the museum world."

The traveling exhibit explores the idea of roots music folk, gospel, blues, country, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll the native and immigrant musical traditions unique to America. African slaves, indentured servants from Ireland and the British Isles, Cajun French and other immigrants brought their own music to America and found the sacred sounds of Native Americans.

"New Harmonies" has interactive exhibits that display instruments unique to those cultures. Visitors can play instruments like the simple Bow Diddley, a string of wire with a bottle opener that slides across it. Throughout the exhibit are musical samples. For example, an accordion display shows how different cultures, from French Cajun to Jewish Klezmer, interpret that instrument differently.

For the Pratt's companion exhibit, "Melodies of Kachemak Bay," Harris shows the connection between Native Alaska music and later immigrant music. The show looks at the music of the Alutiiq and Suqpiaq people, the Russian Orthodox songs of faith and folk songs, the music of the homesteaders and Russian Old Believers, and community music.

"They all build on one another," Harris said. "Each group was influenced by the one before that. You see it even today in the contemporary groups. They're influenced by other cultures."

"That was a real challenge from a curatorial standpoint," Cusack-McVeigh said of Harris' approach. "You're talking 5,000 years and many cultures."

Like "New Harmonies," "Melodies of Kachemak Bay" includes musical instruments, from skin drums to fiddles. There also are some historical photographs, like a 1950s dance in Seldovia and a photo of the first African marimba group in Homer, Mud Bay Marimba. The exhibit also has musical samples, including a recording and the sheet music of Paul Banks' "Kachemak Rag."

"That one is actually pretty cool to hear," Harris said. "It's specifically about the region."

Photo by Michael Armstrong Lifesize photos of musicians appear to be playing in the "New Harmonies" exhibit at the Pratt Museum.

"That is an important aspect of this area, where local music is on display for a weekend in the summer every year," Harris said.

As a visitor to Homer, Harris said he was struck by how diverse music is here, and how it's so unlike other parts of Alaska, as with the five African marimba bands in Homer.

"Who would think marimba would be such a vibrant part of the community?" Harris said. "That's unique."

"That's the feeling I want them (museum visitors) to get: I live in a real unique place that does contribute to the larger music world in the United States," he added.

"New Harmonies" and "Melodies of Kachemak Bay" opened with live music by Michael Walsh, Asia Freeman, George Remington, Heather Tonga and Maygen Jannetta that got people tapping their toes and singing along.

"You know you've had a successful opening when your guests are dancing in the special exhibits gallery," Cusack-McVeigh said.

Harris did a lot of outreach to Kachemak Bay musicians and scholars, she said, for example talking to musicologist Eric Fenger and the English Bay Band.

"People were so warm and welcome and giving of their knowledge," Cusack-McVeigh said. "That meant a lot to (Harris)."

She praised the work Harris did on "Melodies of Kachemak Bay."

"He'd already fallen in love with Homer," Cusack-McVeigh said. "For him this was not an exhibitions graduate course, but a labor of love."

Harris has one more semester at the University of Toronto before he finishes his master's degree. After he graduates, he said he'd like to work in some position as an educator in a museum.

"I want to educate people of all ages outside the classroom, and the museum is a perfect place to do that," Harris said.

"New Harmonies" is a project of Museums on Main Street, a partnership with the Smithsonian and the Federation of State Humanities Councils. It brings Smithsonian exhibits to rural museums throughout the United States. Curators from the Pratt, the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, the Dorothy Page Museum in Wasilla and the Sheldon Museum and Culture Center in Haines received training on setting up the exhibit when it opened in Kodiak. The exhibit also was supported by the Alaska Humanities Forum, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the city of Homer.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong.@homernews.com.