Chris Vallillo Meet & Greet
February 22 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Come meet folk musician Chris Vallillo ahead of his afternoon performance.
Hear about his research and the details that inspired his musical pieces for this project and see the Journey to Freedom- Illinois’ Underground Railroad while you’re at the library.
Chris Vallillo is a singer/songwriter, and roots musician who makes the people and places of unmetropolitan America come to life in song. Having spent the last 30 years in the rural Midwest, he has a natural affinity for American roots music. A master of finger style and bottleneck slide guitar, Vallillo weaves original, contemporary, and traditional songs and narratives into a compelling and entertaining portrait of the history and lifestyles of the Midwest.
Always a project oriented artist, in the early 2000’s Vallillo began creating one man shows using music as the vehicle to explore a subject or theme. His 2008 project, Abraham Lincoln in Song, received the endorsement of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the accompanying CD of music reached #10 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Album Chart. In 2016, his latest recording, Oh Freedom! Songs of the Civil Rights Movement charted at # 6 on the Folk DJ charts. In 2018 he produced Oh Freedom! as a theatrical performance featuring a full band and a 42 voice. That show was videotaped and syndicated on Illinois Public television. In 2021 Chris was awarded an Individual Artist Support Grant from Illinois Arts to record Forgottonia and in 2022, he was awarded a Rural Initiative Grant from the Illinois Humanities Council to develop a new show Forgottonia, featuring original music about rural Illinois combined with images from award winning photographer Tim Schroll.