Performer. Educator. Researcher.
Always a storyteller.
My dream for music.
My performance, my research, and my highest hopes for my students are all rooted in the decolonized, bold, and stoic hope that American music will someday be free.
Free to tell its own story. Not look up or down. Just play. Knee to knee.
The spontaneity to hit one of our country's many diverse music festivals and play music around a big campfire. By ear. To sit with people of all ages and persuasions and listen to each other. Try to hear the tune. Remember it. Play it like they did. Play it like you do. Pass it on.
The time to tour across this country in the band your friends and you conjured up in a late-night music school practice break. In your rusty, trusty, stickered-up band van. Driving 285 South all night from Boulder to Santa Fe to record in some tiny little adobe hut from the 1600s. Tracking between mouthfuls of green chile and coffee and belly laughs. Mid-tour stops at farmers' markets and general stores. Take it in. Every sense.
The patience to practice slowly. Play deep. To look at your audience members in the eye. Make them smile. Shake the hands of the people who cared enough to come and listen. Tell the stories of the ages. At birthdays. At family reunions. At weddings. At funerals.
This is my dream for music. For yours. For mine. And for what, for a moment, is ours.
Dr. Annie Savage brings her distinctive expertise, gained as both a performer and educator, to James Madison University's School of Music. Her award-winning band The Savage Hearts reached #1 on the International Folk Music DJ charts and has performed at IBMA World of Bluegrass while continuing to tour and produce their signature style of potent, fiddle and harp-driven jamgrass.
Throughout her 24-year teaching career, Savage demonstrates expertise in digital music and beat-making while utilizing diverse styles of popular music to develop inclusive programs designed to meet learners' needs rather than expecting learners to conform to traditional program structures. Her innovative Free-Strings Method transforms string education through creativity and cultural responsiveness, founded and supported by strategic partnerships with D'Addario Corporation, Turnberry Records, and the IBMA Foundation.
Her extensive performance catalogue encompasses over 20 albums spanning roots, rock, old-time, classical, and bluegrass genres, reflecting the same artistic curiosity and cultural responsiveness that characterizes her educational philosophy.
