Bill Evans Concert, January 28th, 2012

Bill Evans brings his Banjo in America show to Phinney Community Hall, January 28th, 7:30-10:00 PM.

Tickets are $15 General; $2 discount for SFS, PNA, Seniors; $7 for kids.
Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.


San Francisco Bay Area musician Bill Evans is well known within the acoustic and bluegrass music community not only as an outstanding banjo player, but also as a teacher, writer and scholar. The Banjo in America concert brings together these interests in a unique presentation designed for the concert stage that’s for all audiences. Tracing the banjo from its West African roots to the New World, Evans performs musical examples from the 1700’s to the present day on a variety of vintage instruments, ranging from an African ekonting to a mid-19th century minstrel banjo, a modern bluegrass banjo and even an electric banjo. In the process, Bill explains how the banjo has been at the intersection of African- and Anglo-American musical and cultural exchange for over 250 years. From an 18th century African dance tune to the music of the Civil War, and from early 20th century ragtime to folk and bluegrass banjo styles to Bill’s own incredible original music, The Banjo in America informs while it entertains, exposing audiences to over 200 years of American music. 

Over a performing career that now spans over thirty years, Bill has performed with Dry Branch Fire Squad, Peter Rowan, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, Maria Muldaur, Robin and Linda Williams, Kathy Kallick Band, the Lynn Morris Band and The Jim Hurst Band among others, and for the last two years, Bill drew capacity crowds all across the country with fiddler Megan Lynch.


Evans has presented The Banjo In America at Kobe Shoin Women's University, Kobe, Japan; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Carleton College, Northfield, MN; Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA; Clarion Music Center, San Francisco, CA; Border Folk Festival, El Paso, TX; Columbia Gorge Mixed Bag Music Festival, Stevenson, WA; the Maryland Banjo Academy, Buckeystown, MD; South Plains College, Levelland, TX; the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival, Gettysburg, PA; the Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival, Denver, CO and Wintergrass, Tacoma, WA. The Banjo in America was developed with the support of a grant from the Kentucky Humanities Council.
Bill holds a Master’s Degree in Music from the University of California, Berkeley and completed the coursework for the PhD. He has taught in the music departments at San Francisco State University, the University of Virginia and Duke University and has been an artist/scholar in residence at the University of Richmond and Fairfield University.

You can learn more about Bill Evans and The Banjo in America by visiting Bill’s Internet homepage at www.billevansbanjo.com. Click on The Banjo in America link to learn more about the concert, see the instruments and hear mp3 samples of the different styles presented in the concert.