Bankston-Miles concert coming up at Coastal Carolina
The concert, titled “Songs from the American Musical,” will also feature violinist Amos Goldie of Columbia. Goldie is the organist/choir director at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Irmo and plays violin with various symphony orchestras in the state, as well as with the Columbia Strings.
The program will include a set of vintage Broadway show tunes as well as some destined to become classics in the American musical theater. Composers and lyricists featured include Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bock and Harnick, Gershwin and Cole Porter.
Songs will include favorites such as “I Got Rhythm,” “Luck Be A Lady Tonight” and Steven Sondheim’s “Not While I’m Around.” Music from “The Secret Garden” and “Beauty and the Beast” will be performed as well.
Bankston, associate professor of performing arts, was born and raised in southern Louisiana. Inspired by Bob Dylan and Mose Allison, Bankston was first associated with the acoustic group Manchild, which signed to Capitol Records in the mid 1970s. After Manchild’s breakup, he spent years performing in musical theater. Bankston has since become a music educator and composer as well as an accomplished interpreter of American popular song. His autobiographical CD “Galvez Town” was named one of the “10 Best CDs of 2002” by the Myrtle Beach Sun News.
Bankston has also performed extensively in opera and musical theater, including leading roles in companies such as the Houston Grand Opera, Washington Opera and New Orleans Opera. He was also involved in setting up "Guitars in the Classroom," a program that provides guitar and music instruction for students and teachers in area elementary schools.
Miles is a teaching associate and staff accompanist at Coastal Carolina University since 2002 and also serves as organist and choirmaster for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Conway. She was director of music and organist for the Darlington Presbyterian Church for 21 years. She also accompanied the University of South Carolina Concert Choir and played for Carolina Alive, USC’s show choir, for three years.
For more information, call 349-2502.