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The Suwannee River offers a peaceful backdrop to Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs.
Jim Abbott, Orlando Sentinel
The Suwannee River offers a peaceful backdrop to Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs.
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There’s typically music in the background on my visits to the Suwannee River, a North Florida destination tied in my memory to music festivals at Spirit of Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak.

So it was refreshing to bask in the quiet along the riverbank on a recent stop at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs. The 800-acre park is the main tourist attraction in White Springs, a cozy community 14 miles east of Live Oak and about an hour north of Gainesville on Interstate 75.

Not that there isn’t music here. After all, the park is named for Stephen Foster, composer of Florida’s state song, “Old Folks at Home.” That song is among the Foster compositions that chime several times daily from the Stephen Foster Memorial Carillon, the park’s towering architectural centerpiece.

Foster’s life and career — he was a native of Pittsburgh — is recounted in a series of dioramas in the park’s Stephen Foster Museum. The grand Southern-style mansion, within walking distance of the tower, also showcases an array of historic pianos and the desk where the composer finished the state song.

In an exhibit room at the base of the carillon, there are more historical exhibits, as well as a performance space for modern-day folk musicians. On my visit, a woman plucked out solitary versions of traditional folk songs on a dulcimer.

If that sounds like fun, the park (floridastateparks.org/stephenfoster) is a good place to explore your folk troubadour potential. Banjos, dulcimers and other instruments are available in a gift shop that also stocks homemade jams, handmade quilts, caps and belts.

The gift shop is in the midst of a craft square, where artisans demonstrate jewelry-making and other skills. For the musically inclined, the park offers occasional weekend instruction on building banjos and dulcimers as well as playing them.

If listening is more your style, traditional folk music by A-list touring acts will be showcased at the park May 22-24 at the Florida Folk Festival, an annual tradition since 1953. The music somehow sounds better next to the river.