Michael Lewis
Michael captivates audiences with his powerful voice and innovative guitar, bouzouki, and mandolin playing. Though his technical skill is impressive, it is the art and emotion in his singing and playing that set him apart from others. Using a variety of chord voicings, delicate finger-picking, and percussive strumming techniques, Michael is a master at choosing just the right instrument and style to enhance the mood of each song. His skills as a musical composer, songwriter, and arranger give Traveler's Dream a sound and style that are uniquely its own. With a poet's ability to capture what is universal and enduring in human experience, Michael's songwriting talents were recently recognized for a second time by the Indiana Arts Commission who awarded him an Individual Artist Grant to fund his debut solo album of all-original music entitled The Natural World, which was released in winter, 2011. He was awarded his first grant to research regional traditional music and write four original songs relating to midwestern culture and history.
When not on the road performing, Lewis enjoys producing and recording the music of other regional musicians at his recording studio, Middle Earth. He is also a big fan of 19th and early 20th Century British literature (with favorites being Dickens, Hardy, Virginia Woolf and Austen), contemporary fiction (Joanne Harris is the best of the lot, but John Fowles, Sarah Waters and Michael Ondaatje are also favorites) and opera, as well as a faithful fan of Masterpiece Theater. He spends as much time as he can walking the fields and woods surrounding the home he shares with his wife and band mate, Denise, and their dog, Ruby.