Art Hounds recommend a flutist in Lakeville, a musical in St. Paul and jazz in Rochester

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Flute takes center stage

Roma Duncan is a piccolo player in the Minnesota Orchestra. She recommends a concert this Sunday where the flute will take center stage.

Flutist Adam W. Sadberry, accompanied by Joe Williams on piano, will perform this month’s Coffee Concert at the Lakeville Area Arts Center, Sunday, Feb. 2 at 2 p.m.  

Roma says: Adam’s really put together an interesting program with a lot of music from Black composers. Perhaps the one that catches my attention most is the finisher on the program, “Wish: Sonatine” by Valerie Coleman.

Valerie is a living composer. She’s a Black woman who is a flutist and a composer, and she’s gotten a ton of attention in recent years with with great reason; she always has such engaging, exciting works.  

One of the big pieces that I’m also excited about is the [J.S.] Bach Partita [in A minor]. It’s a real tour de force for flutists.

It’s not very often that we have these solo pieces where we just never stop playing. He has so many different composers on this program, so I think it’ll be really fascinating to hear him switch gears so many times between different eras, different styles, different feels to his repertoire.

— Roma Duncan

13 years of musical marriage

Theater artist Laurie Flanigan Hegge from Minneapolis recommends a light-hearted musical to see with your sweetheart: the musical “’Til Death.”

Written and performed by real-life married couple Jeremiah and Vanessa Gamble of Bucket Brigade, the musical, now in its 13th season, opens Friday and runs through Feb. 15 at Art House North in St. Paul. 

Laurie says: This show is a Valentine to marriage and commitment and a love letter to their community on the west side of St. Paul [where they live and perform]. 

“‘Til Death” features two sets of couples: a married couple who have been together for 15 years but are on the brink of separation, and a newly married couple who are goofily in love with each other. The two of them come together on a snowy night in a blizzard and end up spending a kind of madcap, silly night together, where the realities of what it means to be married and committed kind of crash into each other.  

It’s a fun musical: warm, funny and light-hearted, and it’s performed in a really intimate space called Art House North, which is an old church.

— Laurie Flanigan Hegge

Rochester Jazz

Jazz musician Eric Heukeshoven of Winona recommends spending your Wednesday nights this February at the Rochester City Jazz Fest.

Hear live jazz at the Thesis Beer Project from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., starting Wednesday, Feb. 5.  

Eric describes the line-up: Next Wednesday, Feb. 5, is Darren Saner Quartet. Darren is a crooner from Rochester, very well known.

There is a wonderful band backing him up. The next Wednesday, Feb. 12, is a group called TakeTwo & Friends. They're very much straight ahead, right in the pocket. It’s piano, drums and tenor sax, but I think the “friends” indicates they're going to have people sitting in with them that night.

Then on the 19th is a new group from Minneapolis called 3-D. It features guitar, bass and drums. And wrapping it up [on Feb. 26], just in time for Mardi Gras, is Loud Mouth Brass, which is a New Orleans-style brass band. They will bring down the house, I’m sure.

— Eric Heukeshoven