Each year the winning songs from the Eric Stokes Song Contest are widely varied and always delightful. This year is no different! Today we shine the spotlight on 2016 adult winner Joshua Weinberg. His winning composition, Oktober, will be performed at Zeitgeist's Playing it Close to Home concerts Feb. 18-21. 
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Joshua Weinberg is a flutist/harpist/composer located in the Twin Cities area. As a performer, Joshua has been engaged in many new music projects, premiering his own compositions as well as fellow composers' works for a wide range of audiences from the Fitzgerald Theater to underground punk basement shows in Downtown Minneapolis. In Spring 2015, Joshua won 1st Prize in the Woodwind/Brass Collegiate/Graduate Division of the Schubert Club Scholarship Competition, after which he was invited to perform Toru Takemitsu's enigmatic work Voice for solo flutist for the winner's recital at the new Ordway Theater for Performing Arts. Currently, Joshua performs with RenegadeEnsemble, Improvestra, and is a substitute musician for the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and Encore Wind Ensemble. As a composer, Joshua has been featured three times on the website Composer's Circle and has had his works performed many times by the MusikaNova Ensemble at St. Olaf College. Joshua received his Bachelor's of Music in Flute Performance from St. Olaf College in 2015. 

Oktober is a sonic depiction of the Autumnal changes of colors that occurs every October in the trees of Minnesota. It includes both electric and acoustic sounds to create a driving A minor ostinato pattern that represents time. The middle section of the work sees this ostinato pattern depart as an electronically altered solo alto flute plays a placid melody over a synthesized accompaniment. This represents the changing of the seasons from summer to fall. The ostinato returns, this time in C major to finish the work. The beauty of October leaves a lasting impression, however brief the season may be, and however long the impending winter may last. 

Each year the winning songs from the Eric Stokes Song Contest are widely varied and always delightful. This year is no different! Today we shine the spotlight on 2016 youth winner Meridith Henke. Meridith is a senior at the Math and Science Academy in Woodbury, MN and a full-time PSEO student at Century College. She will perform her winning composition, Nocturne in G Major (for solo harp) at Zeitgeist's Playing it Close to Home concerts Feb. 18-21. 

My love of the harp began when I started listening to my mother’s harp CDs as a young child. When I visited Orchestra Hall for the Kinder Konzert series in preschool, I was astounded by the harp’s elegance and beautiful sound, and it solidified my dream to learn to play the harp. While in kindergarten, I began taking harp lessons with Terry Gibson. Since I had no previous music-reading experience, she taught me to read music through the use of color. I began studying with Shari Rothman at the Minneapolis MacPhail Center for Music in 2012. I currently perform around the metro area at churches, nursing homes, and business events and am a member of the Arpeggio Harp Ensemble.

I have enjoyed composing music for the harp since I was six years old. In 2015, I entered the Minnesota Harp Society ARCH Awards and won an award for composing an original piece of music for harp.

One evening while I was sitting by my harp, the melody of Nocturne in G Major began to flow from my heart to the strings of my harp. Nocturne in G Major begins with a thoughtful theme and intensifies to a climax with more complex harmonies. It then recedes into a lighter, simpler section and returns to the peaceful theme, drifting into the calmness of night.

--Meridith Henke
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​Feb 18, 9:30 a.m. 
Inver Hills Community College Black Box Theater
2500 80th St E, Inver Grove Heights, MN
$10 / free for students

Feb. 19-20, 7:30 p.m.  
Feb 21, 2 p.m. 
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul
$15 / $10 students & seniors

Tickets & Details

Classical Minnesota Public Radio host Steve Staruch describes guitarist Jim Falbo as "A true master...someone who has the chops to caress the listener into a seductive and gorgeous sound world." Falbo will present an eclectic mix of South American, Spanish, and contemporary romantic music on Valentine's Day at Studio Z. 

While most people like to try their hardest to put people's music into genres and sub-genres, I simply am a guitarist who performs what I enjoy to play. I could play an entire concert of classical music, romantic music, or an entire concert of steel string fingerstyle guitar. Also an entire concert of arrangements of oldies and contemporary hits that I have made for the guitar. I could also do an all Spanish themed concert, or most certainly an all Latin American guitar concert, as I have a deep passion for the melodies and harmonies that flow from South America. With that said, it's difficult to select pieces for a given concert.

Given that my Valentine's day "romantic" themed concert will center around love, nostalgia for love lost, and even heartbreak, the task of picking pieces from such a large repertoire is somewhat difficult. I have some pieces that the crowd will be unfamiliar with from Brazil that will make them want to dig deeper into that whole "genre" of guitar music. I also am planning on playing pieces from Elvis, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, and Eric Clapton that I've arranged on both classical and steel string fingerstyle guitar. It is my estimation that fans of  many "genres" of music will come to hear favorites, as well as new pieces of music they may be unfamiliar with. I have played these pieces at many weddings and concerts before, and I believe this concert program will be the best representation of my abilities and passion for the guitar in all it's amazing forms!

​--Jim Falbo

Feb. 14, 2016 
3 p.m.​
$15 / $12 students and seniors
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul
Tickets

Each year the winning songs from the Eric Stokes Song Contest are widely varied and always delightful. This year is no different! Today we shine the spotlight on 2016 youth winner Ivan Cunningham. Ivan is a 16-year-old junior at Perpich Center For Arts Education. His winning composition, Sanctions, will be performed at Zeitgeist's Playing it Close to Home concerts Feb. 18-21. 


I've always been interested in music. Through having musician parents, I've always had an entire library of music at my fingertips for me to listen to and learn from. I started playing saxophone at 10 years old, and it has been my main instrument since. Over the last few years, I've become very interested in jazz and other forms of improvisational music. I have had playing experience in my father's ensemble Fall of The House of Usher, as well a group I formed with my friends, Halcyon Daze. 

I wrote this piece, Sanctions, for Janika Vandevelde's composition class at Perpich. We each wrote a piece for the Zeitgeist instrumentation and then had the amazing opportunity to take a field trip to Studio Z so we could hear our pieces sightread by the ensemble and receive a recording of the reading. 

I only started getting serious about notated composition this school year, due to the classes I've been taking at Perpich. Since I started school at Perpich, I have discovered that composing and playing music is all I want to do with my life. I have found a new way of expressing myself and I believe that it is a beautiful thing. 

I would like to thank Janika Vandervelde for all the countless hours of amazing work she has put into inspiring my class and I. She could not have done a better job in making it clear that she wants us to succeed. 

—Ivan Cunningham

Feb 18, 9:30 a.m. 
Inver Hills Community College Black Box Theater
2500 80th St E, Inver Grove Heights, MN
$10 / free for students

Feb. 19-20, 7:30 p.m.  
Feb 21, 2 p.m. 
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul
$15 / $10 students & seniors

Tickets & Details