Corky Siegel’s Chamber Blues

Is it blues, is it classical? Gritty Chicago blues and rarefied classical chamber music might not seem like a match made in Heaven - until you hear composer and harmonica virtuoso Corky Siegel bring the two together.

Corky Siegel has earned an international reputation as one of the world's great blues harmonica masters. He is a composer, blues pianist, singer / songwriter, and recent winner of the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest/Meet the Composer's national award for chamber music composition and the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award for Music Composition.

Corky Siegel's newest project Chamber Blues, with the West End String Quartet, and Frank Donaldson on world percussion, blends classical and blues styles in a chamber music setting. This ground breaking innovative sound (now on Alligator Records and Gadfly Records) has earned tremendous acclaim throughout the country and continues to open new doors for classical and blues/jazz listeners alike. Chamber Blues won Billboard's Editor's and Writer's top 10 Picks of the Year (1998) and Stereophile Magazine says; "... fantastic ... I've never heard anyone play harp with this much body and harmonic delicacy ... I guarantee you've never heard anything quite like it." The 2005 Alligator Records release of "Traveling Chamber Blues Show" is "A Crowning Achievement" - raves the Chicago Tribune. "Watching them perform is nearly as much fun as hearing them play." - Blues Revue Magazine.