Michael J. Miles in Ireland, May 2011?

When Michael J. Miles (USA) visited family in Ireland in 2002, the Bluegrass Ireland newsletter urged readers to take any opportunity to see or hear him:

Pete Seeger... has himself probably been responsible for more people taking up the banjo than anyone else in the last hundred years, so it says something that he received Michael Miles’s first CD, Counterpoint, with: ‘... the most beautiful recording I’ve heard... enough to make me want to learn the banjo all over again’.

Clawhammer right-hand technique on the 5-string banjo is essentially the same as used on the banjo's ancestors and present-day relatives in west Africa. Michael Miles uses this style to play not just American traditional music but everything from Bach to blues to Latin-American with complete musical success; and if he had been around in the 1850s, maybe no one would have seen any need to use up-picking on the banjo at all.

In May 2011 Michael will be on a concert and workshop tour in the Lebanon and in the London area. The schedule will leave him free during the last week or so in May, and he would welcome chances to play in Britain or Ireland during that time. If you have, or know of, an opportunity for this outstanding banjo-player to perform, contact Michael by e-mail.