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Mike Jurgensen has lived in the Tampa Bay area since 1968,
when he moved from his native Chapel Hill, NC. Mike began playing the guitar
when he was 7 years old, but it was not until 1992 that he began performing in
public seriously. It was then that he discovered the Iron Horse coffee house
in Tarpon Springs, where he began playing open mics. Over the next few years he
branched out to do open mics and feature sets at other Tampa Bay area coffee
houses and restaurants, as well as regularly emceeing the Iron Horse open mics.
He has played at acoustic venues and folk festivals around the state of Florida,
and has opened for such notable performers as Cheryl Wheeler, Richard Shindell,
and Rod MacDonald. Mike has also been the featured artist on various live music
radio shows on WMNF 88.5FM in Tampa.
Although Mike had written several songs prior to 1992, that was the year in
which he began writing seriously. Mike was a finalist in the 1994, 1996, and
2002 South Florida Folk Festival national song-writing competitions, and he won
the 1998, 2004, and 2006 Will McLean Festival "Best Florida Song" competitions.
He also placed several other songs in the top 10 of the Will McLean song
competitions between 1998 and 2002 , and he placed 3rd in the 2003 competition,
and he now judges the annual competition. In addition, two of Mike's songs are
featured in the Edward R. Murrow Award-winning radio documentary "Apalachicola
Doin' Time", produced by WUFT in Gainesville, and his song "The Golden Fleece of
Tarpon Springs" was featured on a Florida Humanities Council project entitled
"Settlers by the Sea". Mike's debut solo CD "The Road Away From Home" was
released in early 2002. Mike also has a sampler CD, containing 10 of his
Florida-themed songs.
From 1994 until 2002, Mike performed as a member of the well-known Florida
acoustic group, Myriad. Together with Myriad, Mike played concerts at coffee
houses, radio shows, benefit concerts, and festivals around the state. Myriad
performed at the Florida Folk Festival, the Will McLean and Gamble Rogers
Festivals, the South Florida Folk Festival, and the Suwannee Spring Fest, to
name a few. Myriad produced 4 recordings- a studio tape produced before he
joined the group, a live tape recorded at the Iron Horse in 1995, and two
subsequent studio recordings, "Song Circle" and "New Strings", both of which
were released in 1997. Several of Mike's songs are featured on the Myriad
recordings. Since Myriad disbanded in 2002, Mike has been performing solo and
with friends at numerous festivals and acoustic venues around the state. For
several years, he performed in a duo with his son, Ian, and most recently he has
been performing with Pete Hennings and Pete Price in the trio
"2PM".
Besides his music interests, Mike has also been quite active in community
theater. He has appeared in lead roles in Richey Suncoast Theatre productions of
"Mister Roberts" and "Little Foxes" (for which he received a Lary Award
nomination), and in the Francis Wilson Theatre productions of "Anna's Brooklyn
Promise" and "My Three Angels". He has also had supporting roles in the Eight
O'Clock Theater production of "Streetcar Named Desire" (for which he also
received a Lary Award nomination in the role of Mitch), Richey productions of
"Becket" and "Billy Budd", and in Tampa Players productions of "The Grapes of
Wrath" and "Assassins". In 2004, Mike was honored to play the part of George
Tesman in the Avenue Players production of Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" at the
Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs. The script for this production
was a translation done 50 years ago by Mike's late father, Kai Jurgensen. Most
recently, Mike was cast in the role of Christopher Christopherson in Eugene
O'Neill's "Anna Christie", also at the Leepa-Rattner Museum, for which he
received his 3rd Lary Award nomination.
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