Studio Z
  • Home
  • About
    • About Studio Z
    • Artists in Residence
    • Purchasing Tickets
    • Accessibility
    • Neighborhood Ammenities
    • Zeitgeist
    • Event Archive
  • Calendar
  • Rent Studio Z
  • Directions & Parking
  • Contact
  • Blog


STUDIO Z Blog

A PROJECT OF ZEITGEIST NEW MUSIC

Spitting Image Collective presents "push / bend / pull"

4/29/2015

0 Comments

 
Spitting Image Collective, a dynamic group of up-and-coming composers formed in 2013, presents its second round of commissions this Saturday at Studio Z. The collective has commissioned five new works from a diverse mix of Twin Cities composers to be premiered at their push / bend / pull concerts on May 2, May 3, and June 11 in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Featuring both seasoned veterans and inventive newcomers, the commissioned composers include Scott Miller, a leading voice in electro-acoustic music locally and nationwide, Joey Crane, a young new-complexity composer originally from Kansas City, and Spitting Image members Katherine Bergman, Ted Moore, and Daniel Nass.  

Highlights of the program include: 

Picture
Raba by Scott Miller

In the fall of 2014, I visited Marimetsa Raba, an Estonian bog. A hike through a fairytale forest eventually leads to 11 kilometers of floating wood planks allowing you to walk across an immense bog, the result of thousands of years of decay, layer upon layer of peat built up a millimeter at a time. Marimetsa Raba is many meters thick, representing millenia of history; it is stitched together and compacted by time, floating in a vast nature reserve.

I was inspired by the idea of an immense surface that seems somehow empty, perhaps even simple, but when your eye is drawn to a detail, it leaps from the landscape. And once you begin to probe the surface, you discover a fantastically complex ecosystem above and below. In Raba, the percussionist is probing the tam1tam, revealing the interwoven partials that combine to create the sound we think of as the instrument. The alto flute, violin, cello, and electronics are tuned to reinforce, interact, and interfere with these partials revealed by the percussionist. The interaction of all these elements activates the room, causing a pulsing, living audio experience in the performance space.

Picture
Pinning a Shred by Joey Crane

"Blank wall. So nightly. Up. Socks. Nightgown. Window. Lamp. Backs away to edge of light and stands facing blank wall. Covered with pictures once. Pictures of...he all but said of loved ones. Unframed. Unglazed. Pinned to wall with drawing-pins. All shapes and sizes. Down one after another. Gone. Torn to shreds and scattered. Strewn all over the floor. Not at one sweep. No sudden fit of...no word. Ripped from the wall and torn to shreds one by one. Over the years. Years of nights. Nothing on the wall now but the pins. Not all. Some out with the wrench. Some still pinning a shred." 

--Samuel Beckett, A Piece of Monologue

Picture
Très Furias by Daniel Nass

Très Furias was inspired by a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition I visited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Part of the installation focused on what the artist called furias, or “intense obsessions with certain performers who would enthrall him for a single season or several years.” In Très Furias, I focus on three musical ‘obsessions’ in the form of three different collections of pitches.

Picture
bend to the light by Katherine Bergman

Trees are the tallest, most massive, longest-living organisms ever to grow on earth. These remarkably resilient and resourceful beings, though often taken for granted, should be admired for their ability to fend off stress and strain, and can act as a source of inspiration amid human conflict. In the face of danger, these unique living systems add strength to their structure, compartmentalize decay, and bend to the light. 

Picture
The Lotus Flower by Ted Moore

An electroacoustic work for violin, saxophone, cello, vibraphone, and SuperCollider. 

Spitting Image Collective
push / bend / pull

Saturday, May 2
7:30 p.m. (pre-concert composer interviews 7 p.m.)
Studio Z: 275 E. 4th St., Suite 200, St. Paul

Sunday, May 3
7:30 p.m. (pre-concert composer interviews 7 p.m.)
Honey: 205 E. Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis

Thursday, June 11
7:30 p.m.
Dreamland Arts: 677 Hamline Ave N, St Paul

$15 / $10 students
Tickets & Info
Picture
New works by Twin Cities composers Scott Miller, Joey Crane, Daniel Nass, Ted Moore, and Katherine Bergman. Performed by James DeVoll, flute; Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, saxophone; Erika Blanco, violin; Carlynn Savot, cello; Jeremy Johnston, percussion; Stan Rothrock, conductor.

Come early on May 2-3 for pre-concert composer interviews at 7 p.m. with Charlie McCarron, host of the Composer Quest podcast. 

0 Comments

Heather Barringer on Stockhausen

4/21/2015

0 Comments

 
The artist has long been regarded as an individual who reflected the spirit of his time. I think there have always been different kinds of artists: those who were mainly mirrors of their time, and then a very few who had a visionary power, whom the Greeks called augurs: those who were able to announce the next stage in the development of mankind, really listen into the future, and through their work prepare the people for what was to come. Only a very few artists in each epoch have had this talent. Today the artist is obliged to take this role, and take it much more seriously than ever, because what is coming is just unbelievable for most human beings. 
—Karlheinz Stockhausen


Stockhausen was indeed a musical seer. At every point in his varied musical life, from Kreuzspiel and Gesung der Jünglinge to Licht and Klang, Stockhausen lifted the veil on new musical worlds—worlds that other musicians, artists, and thinkers continue to explore after him.

He was confident that our experience and understanding of his music was important to our spiritual growth. Even more, he was certain that his music was going to be more useful with the passage of time and worked to make sure his work could be realized by whatever musical forces and circumstances the next millennia might bring. With his later opera, LICHT, Stockhausen was working to provide humanity with a new mythology that would help us greet a new era. Stockhausen has already exerted powerful influence on music in the past half-century. It’s intriguing to imagine that his most powerful influence is yet to come.  

--Heather Barringer

Picture

Zeitgeist's Early Music Festival: Stockhausen

April 23-26
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul

$10 Thursday, Friday and Sunday 
$20 Saturday (includes one or both performances plus wine and hors d'oeuvres)


Tickets & Schedule

Zeitgeist’s 5th Annual Early Music Festival explores the powerful contributions of our musical pioneers with a celebration of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. One of the 20th century’s great visionaries, Stockhausen’s groundbreaking work in electronic and spatial music embraced new artistic possibilities and made a lasting impact on avant garde and popular music alike. From the Beatles to Björk, Stockhausen's music has influenced musicians of all stripes and continues shape new music today.

As a group of musicians dedicated to the music of our time, Zeitgeist knows the most meaningful expressions of today are informed by the musical contributions of yesterday. The annual Early Music Festival honors that artistic debt with performances of influential and rarely-heard works by 20th century masters. 
0 Comments

Aleks Tengesdal Presents "Korvat Auki"

4/2/2015

0 Comments

 
This Saturday, cellist Aleks Tengesdal will present Korvat Auki, a concert of commissioned new music for the cello by Vox Novus composers Whitney George, Ryan Keebaugh, and Peter Amsel, as well as compositions by Aleks Tengesdal and a work by UM-Duluth orchestra director, Jean R. Perrault, a U.S. premiere by Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev, and a work by local (Minneapolis/St.Paul) Vox Novus composer Timothy C. Takach. Aleks is our guest blogger with a preview of the concert. 


Vox Novus has become an important ongoing project for me since last spring. I posted a performer's profile on the website, stating that I was very interested in finding new scores for cello, partly to expand my repertoire, but also to find out what's being written, what new ways music is being expressed. I was hoping to get a few scores from some composers and to learn them and give a recital somewhere. My expectations were exceeded: I received around 200 scores of music. 200! I have five large binders full of this music, and I didn't get a response to the call for scores, I got a response for a call for a total library! Of course, I read through all of it and (at this time in my life), have one binder full of new music that I wish to learn and share in performance. Naturally, I expect to always be able to dig into this deep well of a repertoire and be able to find proper works for various themes and times in my live. I regret not being able to meet any of these composers, but it is a joy for me to learn the works, find their voice, and bring the music to life with my voice.

On Saturday (the 4th of April), I will be presenting some of these works - namely Poeme pour Violoncelle by Peter Amsel, The Extinction Series by Whitney George, The Ground Blurs by Minneapolis composer Timothy C. Takach, and Kontakia by Ryan Keebaugh. These are works that were specifically written for me by these composers. There are more that were written for me in particular, (as can be viewed on my Youtube channel), but the rest are works simply written with others in mind, or written with no premieres in their lifetimes! That's where I can come in!

As for the other works I will be performing, Still Around was written by my current orchestra director, Rudy Perrault (from UMD), with me in mind as well. The only premiere tonight will be a work by Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev called Arco. I will be the first to perform this work ever! He belonged to a student's composition organization called Korvat Auki and that is where I got the inspiration for the title of this concert. It means "ears open" in Finnish. Fitting, for I have needed to have open ears, mind and heart to dig into all this wealth of music that I have received.

It is also my deep excitement to share some of my own compositions on the concert. I most likely will pull out a work I wrote in 2009 when I was studying early music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland called Kralizec for Solo Cello. I will also share a few miniature works that I have written and called Ricercare, namely Ricercare III: Sihaya, IV: The Exulting Ones, VI. Al-tashcheth, and VII. Coirelindale. I will explain everything live with a (hopefully) interesting monologue concerning this work and others on the program!

If you can make it, I hope I can show you a very small slice of what is happening for the cello these days (from Vox Novus) and other sources! Just come with your Korvat Auki. 

   --Aleks Tengesdal 


ALEKS TENGESDAL
KORVAT AUKI

Apr. 4, 2015
6 p.m.  •  $10
Studio Z
Details
0 Comments
    Picture

    Studio Z

    A performance space for the music of our time. A project of Zeitgeist New Music.


    SpiRit of The Times

    YOU get to be the critic! Write a review of any event you attend at Studio Z

    Write a Review

    Categories

    All
    Lowertown Listening Sessions
    Stockhausen
    Zeitgeist


    Archives

    October 2022
    August 2022
    March 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

Picture
Studio Z  •  275 East Fourth Street Suite 200, Saint Paul, MN  •  (651) 755-1600