​I am interested in all the senses. We all engage the world through eyes, ears, mouth, nose, sense of touch. As a composer, you might think that in my compositions I am primarily concerned with hearing. And it's true, I am, but over the years I've started to understand that what I am doing is better described as “music and...”  
 
Music and light. Music and movement. Music and staging. Music and visual image.
 
And now, music and nose.
 
About six years ago the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC was the first American museum to establish a department of olfactory arts. I learned of this development with a great deal of interest. From the time I was a little girl I was enraptured by scents. I loved wearing many different scents at once: bubble bath, lotion, perfume, talcum powder. I was known to experiment with combining the contents of various bottles on my mother’s dressing table. And one of my treasured Christmas gifts was a kit that allowed me to create my own scented lotions. With the announcement of the new Department of Olfactory Arts at MAD, my fascination with designed scents was rekindled and with it, the idea to create a body of music paired with aromas. 
 
Scent and music surely have much in common. An aroma is a powerful memory trigger, just as music can be. The experience of aroma can affect our other perceptive senses, just as music can affect our experience of emotion, visual image and time. Much of my prior musical work arises from a fascination of how music can alter perception and it is this perception-bending intersection between these two artforms that I am keen to explore. 
 
And so I dug in. I researched scent: I talked with neuroscientists, independent perfume designers, a world-class “nose.” I visted Osmotheque, an olfactory archive in France, as well as the Musee International de la Parfumerie in Grasse. I traveled to Los Angeles to meet with the founder of the Center for Art and Olfaction. I tried my hand at formulating my own perfume. I created and hosted a series of scent dinners, with designated scent courses, paired with music. And I read and read and sniffed and smelled. 
 
This weekend at Studio Z, Zeitgeist performs their annual Eric Stokes Song Contest winners (which I am eager to hear), then performs a handful of my concert works, some arranged for Zeitgeist, others written expressly for them, including a brand new piece. The evening ends with music and scent. The audience will be invited to explore three rooms filled with scents and music. I'm not looking for the scent and music to copy or translate each other, but to compliment, much like pairing food and wine. And then, true to form, Zeitgeist will end the evening with food and wine. I hope you'll join us and partake of all the senses! 

--Mary Ellen Childs, composer

Katy Vernon calls herself a "singer of sad songs on a happy instrument." She has been writing songs as long as she remembers; they have always served as an emotional outlet for difficult losses and experiences in her life. Five years ago Katy picked up a ukulele and found that it gave a levity and new creative balance to her work. She performs solo and with a full band all over the state and is preparing for her first UK tour this summer. 

Katy writes: "Songwriting has always been my favourite thing to do. As a child I used to make up musicals as I played with my dolls. It has always been a part of me. I find that I can deal with issues that are on my mind by singing them out. I love singing more than anything else and when I'm singing my own words it is the ultimate self expression." 

Katy is one three winning composers of Zeitgeist's 22nd annual Eric Stokes Song Contest. Named in memory of late composer Eric Stokes, the contest is designed to encourage and celebrate amateur composers throughout the Twin Cities. Katy will perform her winning song, Pearl, with Zeitgeist at their annual Playing it Close to Home concert Feb. 17-18 at Studio Z. 

Pearl was written as a direct response to hypnotherapy sessions that Katy used to deal with anxiety and depression. It was a deliberate move away from sad subject matter and a literal goodbye to the grief that has fueled her earlier works. 

St. Paul resident Seamus Hubbard Flynn, 18, grew up in a musical household and began plunking out miniature “compositions” on the piano from a very early age. He is now a high school senior at Cyber Village Academy, and takes most of his classes through post-secondary enrollment at the University of Minnesota and Concordia University St. Paul. He has studied composition with Abbie Betinis at Concordia since 2015. He also participates in the Schubert Club Composer Mentorship Program, where he receives instruction from Dr. Edie Hill, and in NextNotes Lab, a high school student-run composer ensemble affiliated with the American Composers Forum. When he isn't composing or playing the piano, Seamus enjoys riding his bicycle and looking at atlases (usually not at the same time). 

This year, Seamus was chosen as the youth winner of Zeitgeist's 22nd annual Eric Stokes Song Contest. Named in memory of late composer Eric Stokes, the contest is designed to encourage and celebrate amateur composers throughout the Twin Cities. Seamus' winning composition, Thukdam, will be performed by Zeitgeist at their annual Playing it Close to Home concert Feb. 17-18 at Studio Z. 

​The word “thukdam” refers to a rare occurrence in which the body of a Tibetan Buddhist monk does not decay for several weeks after death, but remains clean and present as if the monk were alive. As a Buddhist practitioner (albeit not in the Tibetan lineage), Seamus was fascinated by this concept, and used it to create this piece for clarinet, vibraphone and piano.
 
The piece follows a structure of “disintegrating loops.” The frenzied perpetual motion introduced near the beginning of the piece gradually returns more and more often to a source of stillness, much like the mind during a long meditation period. Seamus experimented with various methods of sustain on the piano, such as placing a guitar e-bow on a piano string, and holding down specific notes without making sound in order to excite harmonics. In the end, the piece reaches a state of unity in which motives from throughout the piece work in harmony, expressing the interconnection of all things, and a state of oneness after death. 
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