This book includes five chapters of oral history narratives featuring master musicians who immigrated to Chicago from Argentina, Ghana, Jordan, Thailand, and Serbia. Each chapter is accompanied by beautiful illustrations. The book also includes an introduction by Chicago Folklore Ensemble founders Lucia Thomas and Sam Hyson, and appendices with background information on the music, history, and culture of the respective countries and regions.
“Everything I play evokes some kind of memory. When I play I am in communion with my past, and everything in my past becomes alive again. I see people whom I liked and whom I loved, and they are still with me, because I play this music, and the music brings them back from that great void of nothingness. And that’s beautiful. Maybe, in some very intricate way that science cannot yet explain, music creates life again.”
-Excerpt from the oral history of Jovan Mihailović, violinist from Serbia
Cover art by Jovan Mihailović; inside illustrations by Lucie van der Elst and Nick Jackson.
