Musical magic when Bach met Michael Miles and his banjo

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A concert this weekend in Evanston will celebrate the official release of his new album “American Bach Revisited.”

Chicago musician Michael MIles, whose latest CD is “American Bach Revisited," on Sept. 6, 2023.

A child of Oak Park, he had played guitar in a rock band as a teenager but when his father died, he and four siblings each were given $500 from the life insurance money and told by their mother, “Go buy something in honor of your father.

It took nearly a decade of hard work and some false starts before Miles debuted 1997′s “American Bach,” his album of two cello suites by Bach, transcribed for and played by Miles and his five-string banjo, which he has long played in the aforementioned clawhammer style. He has always been aware that as revered as is Bach, he is not what one would call a hot commercial commodity. Miles says in his charmingly self-effacing way, “Let’s just say that ‘Bach and banjo’ does not make my phone ring off the hook with calls about gigs in concert halls.”Still, during the pandemic, he was again brought back to Bach, or as he puts it, “was compelled to return to the holy grail.

His compositions form the album’s “Chicago Suite,” its five movements named for, and needless to say reflecting, various streets and areas meaningful to Miles. “I have lived in the city itself most of my life and the ‘Chicago Suite’ is my instrumental attempt to capture the spirit of some of the streets, instrumental music that tells a story,” he says.

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

 

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