BRISTOL, Tenn.-Va. (March 24, 2025) – The Birthplace of Country Music Museum is proud to welcome award-winning songwriter, musician, and educator Mary Munsey to the podium for the next Speaker Session, a monthly series held at the museum. During the program Munsey will explore the results of a personal experiment with local visual artists and her music. The event will take place at 7 p.m. ET, April 8. There is no cost to attend, but those interested are asked to pre-register.
Mary Munsey adheres to the motto: “If your song is well-written, it should paint a picture in the listener’s mind. If not, keep working on it.” The declaration in itself is a tall order, one that pushed Munsey to examine the theory in a literal sense. She called up a few artists she knew and asked them to listen to her songs. If the music moved them, they were asked to interpret her music visually through their art. Each one she asked rose to the occasion and created what they saw—or didn’t see—in the music and lyrics. During the Speaker Session, Munsey will share her thoughts on the challenge, what it revealed to her, and the connections she was able to make between music and art.
She has been widely honored for her original songs and musical work, including winning the Woody Guthrie International Folk Songwriting Contest and Smoky Mountain Songwriting Competition, and placed in a number of other songwriting contests nationwide. Munsey received her B.A. in music education from Emory & Henry College and her Master’s in music from James Madison University. A choral director in K-12 schools for 18 years, Munsey recently retired as director of the music department at Virginia Highlands Community College after 13 years of teaching there. Additionally, she has a wide and varied career in music performance. From playing bassoon with symphonies to playing bass, mandolin, guitar, saxophone, and keyboards with bands based in the Tri-Cities, she’s been writing music and performing and touring both locally and nationally for many years, including Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe, The Carter Fold, Ralph Stanley’s festival in Coeburn, Va., and Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. Munsey is also a recording artist, with three CD releases covering a variety of musical genres.
Munsey currently facilitates regional Songwriters of the Highlands Appalachia groups, including the new Songwriters Circle program at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum on the second Saturday of each month. For more information about Songwriters of Highlands Appalachia, visit HighlandsAppalachia.org.
For more information on the Speaker Session and to pre-register to attend, please visit the Events page at BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org. Speaker Sessions are also stream live on Radio Bristol’s YouTube channel at YouTube.com/@radiobristolwbcm. The videos will post later to BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org.