Folk Singer/Songwriter Michael Smith in Concert February 29

Chicago-based singer/songwriter Michael Smith stays in your head. Musical mastery is in whatever he does. Enjoy a free concert with the talented Michael Smith on Wednesday, February 29 at 7 pm at Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake Street. Free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 pm. First-come, first-seated. Meet Michael Smith and purchase CDs following the concert.

Michael Smith has turned poems and stories into songs for five decades. He is perhaps best known for writing the lyrics and music for the song “The Dutchman,” made famous by Steve Goodman.

Lyricist, composer, performer, Michael Smith creates new work on a constant basis. As a voracious reader he is never at a loss for material. At age 16, using the words that appeared on the grave of Robert Louis Stevenson, Michael began adapting and setting literature, children’s stories, and poetry to music.

Michael Smith composed and performed the music for the Steppenwolf production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath which won the Antoinette Perry Award for Best Play, 1990. A 17-year collaboration with Jamie O’Reilly resulted in “Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War,” performed at Oak Park Public Library for the Hemingway Big Read as well as at Victory Gardens in Chicago.

Michael Smith’s original songs for “The Gift of the Magi” have been performed at Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn, at SPACE in Evanston, and at Oak Park Public Library, becoming a holiday classic for many Chicagoans. Additionally, Michael Smith created the musical based on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen” for Victory Gardens in Chicago.

For more information on Michael Smith, see www.michaelsmithmusic.com.

This free performance with Michael Smith is part of the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library’s folk music concert series. Singer/songwriters including Bill and Kate Isles, Claudia Schmidt, Kevin So, Joe Crookston, and Kat Eggleston have performed recently as part of this series. Buddy Mondlock will perform the next free concert on Thursday, March 15 at 7 pm at Oak Park Public Library.

Find more about what's happening at the Oak Park Public Library at http://oppl.org/events/calendar.