In the Native American tradition, a young man conveys his love to a girl by serenading her with music from his flute, musician John Aseron told the audience at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian on Thursday night.

“To this day, you’ll still hear grandmothers say to their granddaughters to stay away from flute players,” Aseron joked to a crowd of about 30 people.

Aseron’s 90-minute musical performance was part of Arts Week Evanston. The week promotes free or nearly free arts entertainment in Evanston and is co-sponsored by area businesses and community groups, including Northwestern. This event primarily was sponsored by Kendall College, which owns and operates the museum.

Before he began playing his handmade cedar flute, Aseron asked the audience to close their eyes and relax. He then played his “Simple Sunrise Song,” a song he said reminds him of sunrise in the northern plains.

“I was in outer space. I felt like I was finally alone for a little bit,” said Evanston resident Martha Meyer, Weinberg ’83.

Although the museum billed Aseron as a flute player, he showed versatility by sharing a Native American hunting story, playing his hand drum and singing with his guitar.

His stories and performance with the hand drum were authentically Native American, but Aseron also performed several original compositions, inspired by both modern music and Native American traditions.

In his three guitar songs, Aseron’s lyrics reflected on important world problems.

In song, Aseron compared the suffering of the Native American people to the Aboriginal people of Australia, blamed the U.S. government for killing endangered species and commented on people unjustly imprisoned around the world.

“I’ve been crying in my sleep and I’ve been dreaming where I’ll be when I get out of here/So give me hope/Give me freedom,” Aseron sang about prisoners seeking amnesty.

His songs focused more on modern political issues than historical Native American traditions, but Aseron said the two concepts are related.

“I don’t think there’s a separation between where we are and who we were,” he said.

Born and raised in upstate New York, Aseron now lives on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. Despite performing as a traveling musician, he said he never has had formal musical training.

Even after learning of Aseron’s lack of a musical background, audience members said they enjoyed the blending of the flute and guitar music in the performance.

“I liked the mix between the haunting flute melodies and the contemporary, almost pop-sounding, styles,” said Larissa Chismar, a Music junior.

Although the audience enjoyed Aseron’s performance, many were amused when the musician explained the traditional use for the flute.

Playing the flute might attract women to a Native American man, but museum director Janice Klein said she was not sure such a musical performance would be necessary at NU.

“I don’t think there’s much of a problem over there,” Klein said.