World music and more since 1988

Bringing worlds of traditional music to international audiences of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities for fun, interactive, family entertainment.

It was back in 1988 that we realized we had grown beyond just being a single band, the Balkan Rhythm Band (tm), which in 1980 was the first Balkan-music-based jazz band on the Chicagoland scene and was thus one of (and perhaps) the first “world beat” groups pretty much anywhere. It was clear that we needed an umbrella organization for our then two bands. By 1990, the decision to create Modal Music, Inc. had proven to be exactly the right thing to have done because we had grown to become five bands.

Then we began to present concerts here in America and in Denmark. We have also developed a number of powerful educational programs and have occasionally booking a number of artists who were related to our groups in one way or another. We have also presented programs for the Special Needs community since 1990 and have been awarded muliple grants to assist us in that.

In addition, we have a product line of CDs, hand-knit dolls, small instruments, and various other things “ethnic” that are and will continue to be interesting to our fans and clients.

Our growth is fueled by the quality of our products, both live performances and items we sell. Generally, over half of our business is with repeat clients! People hire our bands repeatedly because they know we provide them with flexible, high quality, family-friendly professional entertainment. And, of course, it helps that we present our music in as an acoustic manner as possible in any given performance situation. Add on our efforts to include the audience in the fun by getting them up and dancing and percussing along with us, and you have the Modal Music story: good music, good players, and responsive, friendly, interactive entertainment.

Our roster reflects the variety of American immigration. We have upbeat Jewish Klezmer, exotic Greek Rembetika, sweet Scandinavian dance music, French Canadian songs and hot World Music groups like the Earwig Music label recording artist, Jutta & the Hi-Dukes (tm) which is all of the above and more. And then there is ethnically American music, too. We have a Swing / Tin Pan Alley / Dixieland band and can book a number of traditional Blues artists and bands.