About Saro
Hi, I’m Saro Lynch-Thomason (she/her). I’m a song leader, folklorist, scholar and ritualist living in Asheville, North Carolina, traditionally known as ᏙᎩᏯᏍᏗ (“Togiyasdi”). I’m so glad you’re here!
I teach song and folklore to help people viscerally connect to grassroots history and ancestral knowledge.
Are you yearning for an authentic understanding of ancestral folkways and spirituality? Do you want an embodied, musical grounding in people's history that you can carry into the classroom, on stage, or onto the picket line? I'm here to provide a gateway to the songs that help us experience release, kinship, perseverance, and liberation.
Songs carry instructions passed down from ancestral peoples.
I've always been fascinated by what songs do: what changes they make in our bodies, and how they shape the daily rhythms of life and struggle. Songs don't just make us feel amazing. They carry instructions on how to live well, die well, resist, remember, and revere. This is the knowledge we can unpack together and carry forward to empower our communities.
For nearly 20 years, I've studied traditional songs.
I've studied traditional songs of Appalachia, the American South, and the Anglo-Celtic Isles. I'm equally comfortable teaching 19th-century Appalachian camp meeting songs, exploring the folklore of 17th-century English ballads, invoking the righteous anger of 20th-century labor anthems, and creating new songs to praise Iron-Age goddesses.
Though I didn't grow up directly connected to the song traditions of my grandparents, I was instinctively attracted to folk songs and ballads from a young age.
My family has been in the American South and Appalachia for hundreds of years. In my youth in Nashville, I taught myself songs from British folk revival albums and listened to artists like Sinéad O'Connor. In college, I began to connect to resistance songs through my mentors Michael and Carrie Kline. I moved to Asheville in 2009 and started learning traditional songs through singers like Bobby McMillon and Sheila Kay Adams.
I hold an M.A. in Appalachian Studies from East Tennessee State University and a Certificate in Documentary Studies from Duke University. I've taught at folk music camps and performed at festivals across the U.S. and abroad. My albums span traditional ballads, the history of the West Virginia Coal Mine Wars, and women's history. My song "There Are More Waters Rising" has become an anthem in the climate movement, garnering praise in the Huffington Post.
In any given season, you'll find me conducting the Western North Carolina Pagan Choir, teaching online courses, and performing with my Celtic band Émigré.