Jobs, Internships & Research
Employment
We are not currently accepting applications for any positions.
Internships
An internship with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings offers a wide range of valuable and meaningful experiences in the recording industry and non-profit arts administration, within the context of the world’s largest museum complex. Specific learning opportunities include graphic design, music marketing, royalty administration, cataloging and research, and educational content creation. Interns are expected to work for at least 100 hours, and ideally no less than 10 hours/week. Some specific internships may require longer commitment to ensure a successful experience, both for the intern and for Folkways. In addition to honing specific skills, interns will meet regularly with their supervisors, work with other interns and other staff on team projects, and have access to a wide array of programming, as well as curatorial and professional experts across the institution. For information on specific internships available, please see below.
To apply, visit SOLAA and create an account. After selecting Internship, specify the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (please indicate the name of the specific internship in your essay.) You will be required to upload supporting materials, including an essay, resume, transcripts, and letters of recommendation.
The submission deadline for summer internships with Smithsonian Folkways is April 15. There are no deadlines for submitting applications for other seasons. The completed application is to be submitted at least six weeks before the start of the internship.
If you have questions, please contact our intern coordinator Arlene Reiniger.
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Type: Experiential, college credit
Description: Smithsonian Folkways is in the process of launching an online music education platform responding to rapidly changing educational realities by providing customizable, technologically integrative experiences that enable engagement on multiple levels of the traditional-to-online classroom continuum. We are looking for interns to assist with making Learning Pathway lessons ready for launch. The work includes slideshow design, researching ownership and securing permissions for media used in the Lessons, communicating with pathway curators, copy editing, and other tasks as assigned. This is a good internship for those interested in music education, applied ethnomusicology, music licensing, and non-profit administration. Current Pathways: The Asian Pacific American Experience, Music of the Asian Royal Courts, The Roots of Puerto Rican Music, Native North American Music.
Length: At least 2 months, preferably 10 hrs / week or more
Location: Virtual
Experience: Must be detail oriented, possess highly developed communication skills for communicating with scholars and artists regularly. Knowledge of current Pathway topics is a plus, but not necessary.
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Type: Paid Internship
Description: Work with Smithsonian Folkways Director and members of the Ralph Rinzler Archives to review recordings of Indigenous peoples in the Smithsonian Folkways Catalog. When Folkways Records founder Moses Asch turned his record label over to the Smithsonian in 1987, the newly created Smithsonian Folkways Recordings inherited an enormous back-catalog of records, some with recording dates as early as the 1930s. Smithsonian Folkways has worked with representatives of Indigenous groups who have come forward to contest or ask for more information about its holdings, but we are now creating an initiative to pro-actively review our holdings to look for potential ethics violations, as ethical standards regarding Indigenous holdings have changed substantially since the albums were recorded. The intern will work with archival entities, leading scholars, and representatives from Indigenous cultural groups to strengthen the shared stewardship of recorded materials.
Length: No less than 2 months, at least 20 hrs/week.
Location: Preferable on site, virtual internship is a possibility.
Experience: Preferably graduate students, but will consider undergraduate students who have done independent research on Indigenous cultural rights.
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Type: Experiential, college credit
Description: Smithsonian Folkways is looking for enthusiastic marketing interns who are ready to learn the many skills of positioning new culturally and historically significant recordings in an ever-changing digital and physical marketplace. The intern will help write copy to accompany our content on social media and our website, assist in maintaining a marketing calendar, positioning our extensive catalog on DSPs, gathering relevant information for new releases essential in crafting marketing plans, and other tasks as assigned.
Length: 3 months, 24 hr/week minimum
Location: Virtual
Experience: Must be detail oriented, with good writing and communication skills. Must have a passion for music and media, and experience with social media, graphic design, editorial, college radio a plus. Ideal applicants are voracious listeners across many genres and styles, and spend much of their free time scouring the internet for new music and are familiar with Bandcamp, Spotify, and other new music discovery tools.
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Type: Experiential, college credit, or volunteer
Description: The Smithsonian Folkways Royalties Intern will work with the royalty department on projects involving the processing and calculation of artist and publishing royalties. The intern will learn about various aspects of royalty administration by matching metadata from incoming digital music sales to the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings catalog, reviewing contracts, researching missing artists, publishers, and heirs, and other ad hoc projects and research related to royalties.
Length: No less than 3 months.
Location: Virtual
Experience: Experience with Excel and Filemaker Pro is a plus.
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Type: Experiential, college credit
Description: The Smithsonian Folkways Web & IT Production Intern will assist Smithsonian Folkways' Director of Web & IT with day-to-day operations related to the management of our web site and digital collection. These duties may include digitizing images, scanning archival documents, encoding audio and video, entering metadata, and contributing written content to our web site. Scholars interested in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, American studies, history, and folklore will enjoy spending time with our collection and will be exposed to many unique topics and ideas. Skills gained in the areas of web and IT production are invaluable to future scholars, writers, educators, archivists and web site managers as they embark on their careers.
Length: 3 months, part-time to full-time
Location: Virtual, In-Person
Experience: The ideal candidate will be passionate about music and have some prior experience with web publishing or work in an archival setting.
Note: Currently accepting applications for Fall 2021.
Volunteers
Volunteers are very welcome at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, working on a number of projects in marketing, mail order, the archives, recording production, and adminstration. Please contact Beshou Gedamu at GedamuB@si.edu.
Research
The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is currently closed to researchers in accordance with the Smithsonian Institution's guidance to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Although our physical collections are currently inaccessible for onsite research, we offer digital versions of many of our collections online. Please consult the Archives staff list for inquiries.
