[Aaron Jonah Lewis] Vote for Emmett

A New Release, Upcoming Gigs, Concert Video, and Book Report!

Happy Spring! Before anything else, please click this link to help get my pal Emmett a Freedom Concepts Tandem — Here’s the story, from his parents Annie Campbell and Ben Belcher:

“Emmett was born with a rare genetic brain malformation called Hemimegalencephally. At 7 mos old he needed to have extreme brain surgery called a hemispherectomy to stop 20+ daily seizures. This surgery, and the seizures had some pretty serious impacts: cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, apraxia, vision loss and autism-like traits. But Emmett a bright and beautiful little human and loves adventure!  He’s outgrowing current trike which is non-adaptive and we have to pull by rope. This bike would be an absolute game changer for what we could do as a family! So much freedom to explore could be in our future!! Thank you all so much for your support! Love, the CampbellvonBelchers.”

For the rest of this newsletter we have

• Upcoming Gigs

• Help Me Figure Out Travel?

• A New Release (Coming Soon!)

• Concert Video

• RBR Update

• Book Report

Upcoming Gigs

Honestly my friends there are precious few gigs for me these days, and I’m not terribly happy about that. But there are some good ones coming up in the next couple months:

April 14 I’m opening for my pals The Debutants for a SOLD OUT show at Fairfield Manor in Ft. Wayne, IN

April 15 is a free solo show in Ashley, IN, at Hartland Winery, 5pm, 21+

April 30 - 3pm Fiddle Workshop and 7-9:30 solo concert in London, Ontario, at the Crooked Stovepipe. This will be on my way home from the American Banjo Fraternity Spring Rally so I will surely be fired up from that experience!

Stay tuned for EU/UK tour dates in June!

Help Me Figure Out Travel?

In June I am traveling from home in Detroit to Ireland, Scotland, England, Berlin, Rotterdam, Paris, back to Ireland and then back home in about 4-5 weeks. I spent a few hours yesterday trying to figure out how to do this traveling and man it’s not getting easier. Do you have any suggestions for me re tips for booking travel? I could really use some help!

A New Release (Coming Soon!)

I am finally getting ready to release “Dos Señoritas: Classic Banjo Duets,” a short album I recorded with Ben Belcher just before the pandemic started. Here’s a sneak preview of the artwork, by Grace van’t Hof —

Pretty neat, huh?!

Concert Video

The concert at JAPC two weeks ago was incredible, and it may have just been the first time in history that a concert featuring duets with classic banjo and pipe organ has ever taken place! It didn’t occur to me until afterwards but such a duet would have been impossible before people had microphones, and I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it, have you?

We have some beautiful videos coming in soon for individual pieces from the concert. Full concert video and concert program are now publicly available on YouTube, and Patreon supporters always get early access — Join now for less than the price of a cup of coffee by clicking here!

Ragtime Banjo Revival Update

I’m heading into the studio this Monday for my last recording session of the project (for now) — two classic ragtime pieces arranged for banjo and marimba ensemble! (Who else in the word, right?)

When the recordings are all finished we will begin the process of mixing, and I will have to figure out where to find the money to move forward and do this project justice. Some people have suggested I start a nonprofit and that is honestly the last thing I want to do. I just want someone with money who wants to see this project happen step forward and say, “I will support this project!” But who knows, the work must continue one way or another.

I’ve also started working on a website for the project, coming soon. I’ve been doing some writing to explore my intellectual and emotional foundations for this work, and to try and address the questions “Why ragtime? Why now?” So stay tuned for that as well.

Book Report

I spent the past few months reading The History of White People, by Nell Irvin Painter. This is thick one, as you might imagine, but easy to read and well worth the effort. One of my main takeaways is that “whiteness” was created to justify exploitation, which I already knew but now have a much deeper understanding for.

The other, and this was more of a surprise to me, was (quoting from the book): “… the six to seven billion people now living share the same small number of ancestors living two or three thousand years ago. These circumstances make nonsense of anybody’s pretensions to find a pure racial ancestry. Nor are notions of Western cultural purity any less spurious.”

This book opened my eyes in many ways and it is extremely well-researched. Can highly recommend!

Ciao for now

Thanks for staying with me! I hope I’ll see you again soon.

Banjovially,

Aaron

www.aaronjonahlewis.com