A poster advertising the Vermont's Tunebook Tradition exhibit at the Vermont History Museum's Local History Gallery, scheduled for August-December 2025. The poster features a musical score of Psalmody with lyrics, surrounded by decorative borders, and includes a QR code for more information.
Historic brick building with three levels of white porch and columns, labeled with a sign 'Pavilion' at the top, and a sign 'Museum' near the entrance, with two cars parked in front and lush greenery surrounding it.

On View at the Vermont History Museum, Montpilier August to December 2025

"Vermont's Tunebook Tradition: Composers, Compilers & Singers of Psalmody (1790-2025)"

Guests will find printed music and hand written or manuscript music from early Vermont.

Music flourished in early Vermont (1790-1810), and community singing was a centerpiece of daily life. During these twenty years, Vermonters composed, compiled, and printed seven tunebooks full of hymns, anthems, odes, laments, and fuging tunes, which are still sung across Vermont and around the world today. The Vermont Early Music Project has partnered with eight local historical societies and museums to present the printed tunebooks and handwritten part books of early Vermont musicians alongside stories of music-making Vermonters spanning 235 years.

Older man with gray hair wearing a green t-shirt, using a touchscreen device at an exhibit in a museum, with informational posters on the wall behind him.
Two open historical books displayed in a glass case at a museum, with informational posters about the Singing Spear Sisters and Thomas Atwill hanging above them.

Review From Nym Cooke:

¨A 45-minute visit to Vermont's Tunebook Tradition, put together by my friend the indefatigable connector of people, projects, and history Kerry Cullinan, left me highly impressed. It's attractive, it's accurate, it draws you in, and it points out some telling interrelationships between tunebooks and the people who compiled and used them. This is the deepest dive I've yet seen into bringing together documents and recordings related to a specific region's activities in early American psalmody, and it's informative on the level of both printed tunebooks and manuscripts. Vermont's Tunebook Tradition rightly pays homage to Betty Bandel (1912-2008), who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to open up the sacred music and musicians of the Green Mountain State for study and enjoyment through Vermont Harmony, a series of recordings with extensive notes that Betty produced in collaboration with James Chapman. Another praiseworthy aspect of the exhibit is the inclusion of recordings--both audio and video--of shape-note singers bringing some of the best early Vermont music to life. The exhibit's up through December; don't miss it!¨

Black and white photo of Nym Cooke, a middle-aged man with curly hair, sitting on a couch in front of a bookshelves, looking down at a book or paper, with a neutral expression.
Exhibit in a museum featuring historical Vermont tunebooks, with display cases containing small manuscripts or books and informational signs on the walls.
Three elderly women in a museum looking at exhibits and screens.
A man in a brown leather jacket and beige pants is standing in a museum, reading informational display panels on the wall. The room has wooden flooring and several display cases with artifacts and documents.
A museum exhibit with a woman reading displays and an old printing press in a glass case. There is a TV showing a lecture or documentary on the left side of the image.