Art Hounds: Choral transformation, small-town musical and a Zappa tribute

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. 

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Musical premiere in Bemidji tackles small-town healing

Kevin Cease of Bemidji is a funeral director and fan of community theater. He’s looking forward to the world premiere of “Water from Snow,” a new musical by Janet Preus, co-written with Robert Elhai and Fred Steele.

The show opens Saturday, April 5 at the Rail River Folk School and runs through Sunday, April 13. Tickets here.

Kevin said: I’m looking forward to the world premiere of local playwright Janet Preus’s show “Water from Snow.” It is an original musical play co-written by her and Robert Elhai and Fred Steele of the Steele family. As it is set in a small town on a lake in northern Minnesota, Bemidji seems perfect for its premiere!

Important and universal themes drive this story: healing wounds caused by abuse; overcoming racism against Indigenous people; bridging generational differences; valuing elderly community members; and championing women supporting each other. They hope to generate meaningful conversations among audience members, performers and the creative team.

The roughhewn nature of the Rail River School venue in Bemidji lends additional character and dimension to the play. The music is diverse from a mix of music from country and blues, to pop, ballads and R&B, even a song from old farts at the setting of the café — there are 22 original songs! The lively local cast has chosen their roles carefully, with a range of characters drawn from the writer’s lifetime in rural Minnesota.

— Kevin Cease

MacMillan’s transformative choral work

Stephen Kingsbury is a choral director and educator who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan. He recommends two upcoming events celebrating MacMillan’s music.

MacMillan will conduct seven Twin Cities choirs in a free performance called “Voices for a Cathedral” at the Cathedral of St. Paul, Friday, April 4 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

VocalEssence will also perform an all-MacMillan program Sunday, April 6 at 4 p.m. at the Ordway in St. Paul, with both MacMillan and Philip Brunelle conducting. The program features “Seven Last Words from the Cross” and “The Sun Danced,” with soprano Goitsemang Lehobye joining the U of M University Singers and orchestra.

Kingsbury describes his first encounter with MacMillan’s work over 25 years ago:

Stephen says: One day, in deep frustration, I was going through my collection of recordings looking for inspiration. I found a disc that I had no recollection of purchasing. It was of MacMillan’s “Seven Last Words from the Cross.” I popped in the player and spent the next hour laying on the floor of my apartment, wrapped in the music, staring up at the ceiling, silently weeping.

I had never encountered anything like it. In that hour, I was transformed by a new awareness of what the choral art could be: how it touch the soul in deep and transformative ways. I knew then that MacMillan had to be the topic of my study.

Since then, MacMillan’s music has served as one of the centers of my artistic and scholarly life. I’ve since written a number of additional articles about his music and had the pleasure of being able to conduct many of MacMillan’s compositions. His music strikes a balance between passion and craft; it is both deeply emotional and thoughtful.

— Stephen Kingsbury

Zappa’s legacy lives on in Mankato tribute

Paula Marti of New Ulm is a classically trained oboist and manager of Morgan Creek Vineyards & Winery, where she curates summer concerts. She also has a lifelong love of Frank Zappa’s music, and she recommends a tribute concert this weekend.

Joe Tougas and his ensemble Joe’s Garage return to perform “Joe’s Garage, Act Two,” a Frank Zappa tribute concert. The event is Saturday, April 6 at 7 p.m. at the Morson-Ario-Strand VFW in Mankato.

Paul says: What’s unique about this particular group is because there’s so many professional musicians in it, they really have been able to achieve the sound that Frank Zappa attempts to create in his works. He has this diverse sensibility about sound and rhythm.

It’s integrated in a marvelous way that has this orchestral effect. It’s just amazing as a classical musician myself, enjoying what comes out of these interesting themes that Zappa puts together, which are unique, they're cultural expressions of our time and our era.

And he does that in a way that’s very, very respectful to the instrumentation that has to go on that represents, you know, the harmonies, the diversities and the the challenges of the message of the music.

— Paul Marti