Bill Miller Native American Flute Workshop at Artspire

A Mohican Indian from northern Wisconsin, Bill Miller has long been one of the most admired figures in the Native American music arena and beyond. As an award-winning recording artist, performer, songwriter, activist, and painter, he’s been a voice for the voiceless, a link between two great and clashing civilizations.

Bill Miller explains the workshop as “focusing on the Native American flute and speaking some history on this instrument as well as the history of the instrument in my own musical career, I will share how I was taught to play in a traditional way by elders in northern Wisconsin in the mid-70s. I will share the stories of recording soundtracks, background music on very famous recordings. I will show and play the techniques I have learned throughout the years and if anybody wants to bring their native flute to the workshop I’m going to teach them a song and possibly bring them up on stage to perform with me. I will do several flute pieces in different keys and styles. I will show how this instrument turned me around to see that I am in instrument myself; I am an instrument of peace, so is the flute, so is my voice, so is my presence, so is my guitar and so is my spirit. I will take questions concerning the connection between my heritage and my music.”

This workshop is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from Wisconsin Arts Board.