Cory Winters Shapenote Group

Cory Winters leads a Northwest Arkansas shapenote singing group rooted in the Sacred Harp tradition, an unaccompanied four-part American hymn style that traces back to early nineteenth-century New England and traveled south through the singing schools of Appalachia and the rural South.

Winters has been studying and playing traditional Irish music since the age of 11, when he began playing violin. He has been writing his own shape-note songs since 2013 and has been mentored by leading shape-note songwriters such as Dan Brittain. Winters has a song in the Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition and served as mentor to Allison Langston for the Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Training Program.

At the Arkansas Folklife Festival, Winters leads both a Sunday-morning open singing on the People’s Stage and a conversation on the Common Threads Stage with Elizabeth Janes, Allison Langston, and Mckenna Mullis about the practice of shape-note singing in Arkansas.