Ted Moore's Gilgamesh & Enkidu for string quartet and SuperCollider will be performed by the Enkidu String Quartet on Thursday, Nov. 6 as part of Zeitgeist's 6th Annual New Music Cabaret. Ted explains how the work came to life and answers the question we've all been asking: what is SuperCollider? 


Gilgamesh & Enkidu is about existential angst. It's about loss. It's about wanting to achieve something really, really badly, and failing—but it's also about how to overcome the sense of failure. It's about letting go. It's about finding wisdom in devastation and bouncing back to be a stronger person.

The idea for this project, Gilgamesh & Enkidu, came from a colleague of mine who was teaching a course on ancient history. He told me about the epic story and I was immediately drawn to it's existential themes. It's a literary narrative that mirrors many of the musical narratives I create through my work. My colleague thought it would make for a good opera, however, at the time I wasn't interesting in writing an opera, but instead wanted to add my voice to the string quartet tradition. 

In addition to the common string quartet, this piece also uses SuperCollider. SuperCollider is not a physical object, but a programming language specially designed for working with audio (yeah, I wrote the music and a whole bunch of computer code too!). Each of the string players have a microphone, which SuperCollider and I use to record their sound, manipulate it in various ways, and then play it back through the four speakers surrounding the audience. Sounds whoosh by and spin around the audience, creating a truly immersive environment.

I'm really excited to have the Enkidu Quartet playing on the Cabaret. Although they didn't exist formally as a quartet before the project, this will be the fifth time that they have performed this work. It's been awesome to watch them develop the piece, adding their own expertise and taking ownership of the performance, which makes for a more epic experience.

You should come to Gilgamesh & Enkidu at Zeitgeist's Cabaret. Get your heart strings tugged and your ear drums rattled. It's gonna be epic.

--Ted Moore

Ted Moore's "Gilgamesh & Enkidu"
at Zeitgeist's 6th Annual New Music Cabaret

Thursday, Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m.
(preceded by the Young Performer Showcase, followed by Zeitgeist and Nautilus Music Theater)

Studio Z, 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200
St. Paul

$10

Tickets and Festival Schedule

A four-day festival of new music from multiple genres, Zeitgeist’s 6th Annual New Music Cabaret highlights cutting-edge performances from the fringe of the Twin Cities music scene. An eclectic mix of the music of our time, this year’s cabaret includes performances by Zeitgeist, ANCIA Saxophone Quartet, Nautilus Music Theater, Steve Kenny Quartet, Ted Moore’s Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and more. Attend one or all shows for $10 per night. 


Ted Moore's other upcoming performances:

if two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them (world premiere)
presented by Kyle Hutchins and Alyssa Anderson 
Gamut Gallery, Mpls., Nov. 1, 7:30pm

Persephone (world premiere)
live music and dance
Cowles Center for Dance, Mpls., Dec. 4-6

Struck Percussion is excited to present an eclectic set of works for percussion ensemble at Zeitgeist's 6th Annual New Music Cabaret. Operating at 3/4's strength (quartet member Bo Hoover is studying in Ireland for a year), Struck decided to put together a diverse set of percussion trios for their performance on November 7th at 7:30 p.m.

Music from Brazil, France, and Minnesota will be featured. Cadencia para Berimbau by Ney Rosauro will feature Adam Rappel as soloist on Berimbau. Minnesota composer Josh Clausen will be represented by his electroacoustic piece, "Sorry I've already forgotten your name...", for drum set, vibraphone, drums and electronics. The centerpiece of the concert will be Musique de Table by Thierry De Mey, which challenges the performers with dozens of hand gestures, moves, and motions performed in near darkness on three amplified table tops.

Struck Percussion has been performing together since the fall of 2011. Committed to performing new, genre-bridging music and exposing audiences to percussion music, Struck Percussion performs both standard repertoire as well pieces composed specifically for the ensemble. Recent commissions have produced new percussion music by James Holdman, Josh Clausen, and Troy Strand. 

Since their formation, Struck Percussion has performed in collaboration with MacPhail Center for Music, Ballet Folklorico Mexico Azteca, Walker Open Field, the University of Minnesota, and the Minnesota Percussion Association. Struck Percussion is committed to creating community awareness of the percussive arts by providing educational workshops in the community and in local school settings. Struck Percussion has presented clinics at the Minnesota Percussion Association Day of Percussion, Winona Cotter High School, Rosemount High School, and The Metropolitan Library Service Agency’s “Live at the Library” series.

Struck Percussion
at Zeitgeist's 6th Annual New Music Cabaret

Friday, Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
(preceded by the Young Performer Showcase, followed by Zeitgeist and the Steve Kenny Quartet)

Studio Z, 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200
St. Paul

$10

A four-day festival of new music from multiple genres, Zeitgeist’s 6th Annual New Music Cabaret highlights cutting-edge performances from the fringe of the Twin Cities music scene. An eclectic mix of the music of our time, this year’s cabaret includes performances by Zeitgeist, ANCIA Saxophone Quartet, Nautilus Music Theater, Steve Kenny Quartet, Ted Moore’s Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and more. Attend one or all shows for $10 per night. 

Zeitgeist's annual New Music Cabaret welcomes performers from the fringe of the Twin Cities music scene to present the eclectic variety of new music in our community. This year, Nautilus Music Theater will take the stage on Thursday, Nov. 6th to present selections illustrating storytelling through music, including excerpts from Locket Arias, a new opera by composer Phil Fried. Phil kindly offers some insight and background to his new work. 


“Locket Arias” is an operatic setting of a play of the same title by Ruth Margraff. The work is a series of tableaux featuring six famous 19th century courtesans set as six arias. I saw the work as cinematic, and thought it best to set the text in musical styles of the past with all the trappings of mainstream opera including catchy tunes, vocal display, and arch form. This stylistic choice has been utilized by other theatrical composers. Even 20th century atonalist Hans Werner Henze (“The Prince of Homburg”) assigned distinct musical styles to individual characters. I avoided direct musical quotations from the period, but inhabited the musical world of the opera's subjects. One was very likely to find these women at the opera house; Cora Pearl herself performed as Cupid in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. 

I read Ruth's play through many times, decided not to change her prose into rhyming verse, but added a few pronouns to keep the scansion for the musical line. Rhyme was a frequent convention of 19th century opera, but Ruth's prose has revealing power. The music and words together fashion a mask and vision of these women: their character, emotions, and experience. 

--Phil Fried



Nautilus Music Theater presents "Locket Arias"
at Zeitgeist's 6th Annual New Music Cabaret

Thursday, Nov. 6 at 9:30 p.m.
(preceded by Zeitgeist, Enkidu String Quartet, and the Young Performer Showcase)

Studio Z, 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200
St. Paul


$10


Tickets and Festival Schedule

Nautilus presents selections illustrating STORYTELLING THROUGH MUSIC: "Amelia’s Song" (Reichard/Metzger), “Three American Songs” (Taylor/Springsteen/Simon), Excerpts from LOCKET ARIAS (Margraff/Fried), and “How Glory Goes” from FLOYD COLLINS (Landau/Guettel) — featuring Kym Chambers, Janet Fried, and JP Fitzgibbons, with Jill Dawe on the piano.

A four-day festival of new music from multiple genres, Zeitgeist’s 6th Annual New Music Cabaret highlights cutting-edge performances from the fringe of the Twin Cities music scene. An eclectic mix of the music of our time, this year’s cabaret includes performances by Zeitgeist, ANCIA Saxophone Quartet, Nautilus Music Theater, Steve Kenny Quartet, Ted Moore’s Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and more. Attend one or all shows for $10 per night. 

Radio K’s Sound Grammar is pleased to present the premiere performance of saxophonist and composer George Cartwright’s newest group, Pal! This is creative music at its finest, so come out all you avant-humans! 

We first pitched the idea of doing a “George Cartwright celebration” to George in early August. We should have known he would decline. George is remarkably modest. Luckily, he had another suggestion. He want to put together a new band as a kind of improvised-music supergroup. We were thrilled. Performing in this group will be:

George Cartwright- Saxophones and Composition
George Cartwright came to prominence leading the seminal downtown band Curlew (through whose ranks came the likes of Tiom Cora, Fred Frith, and Bill Laswell). After more than a decade in New York, he made his way to Saint Paul (via Memphis) in 1999, and soon became one of the most talked-about figures on the local creative music scene.  

JT Bates- Drums
JT Bates is a cornerstone of the Twin Cities jazz scene. His weekly series, JT’s Jazz Implosion, consistently plays host to vital jazz artists from Minnesota and beyond. He is able to draw a constant pool of creative energy and contributes palpably and uniquely to every group he plays with.

Adam Linz - Bass
Adam Linz is the head of the jazz program at MacPhail. He has a long history with Cartwright, and can also be found playing with the Dave King Trucking Company, Fat Kid Wednesdays, and many others. 

Josh Granowski-Bass
Josh Granowski is a versatile bassist with a strong ear. His versatility is remarkable, from his free improvisation in Merciless Ghost to his noirish colorings in Bookhouse, a trio whose repertoire consists of experimental takes on the music of the hit ‘90s television series Twin Peaks.

Andrew Broder - Guitar and Vocals
Andrew Broder (Cloak Ox, Fog) is a multi-instrumentalist who performs variously on turntables, guitar, and vocals. With roots that span from hip hop to indie rock and jazz, Broder has a broad vision that yields amazing rewards throughout his catalogue.

Anne Elias - Text/Visuals
Anne Elias is a multimedia artist. A graduate of RISD, she has studied everything from modern dance to Japanese pottery, and allows these interests to organically inform her work.

This event is sponsored by Radio K and Radio K's jazz/improvised music specialty show, Sound Grammar. 



Radio K Meets Studio Z 
Sound Grammar Presents George Cartwright's Pal

Oct. 7, 2014
8 p.m. 

Studio Z, 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200
St. Paul

$12 

A native Duluthian who returned in her adulthood to her home town, remembering and reflecting on Eleanor is an amazing task.  While small in stature, Eleanor lived life BIG and at a pace few could match.

Those who worked with her got to know her very well and feel the loss of her death and the privacy she put around herself at the end as a great challenge.  We have to learn to go on, accept that we knew her, that she knew us, that we will always think lovingly of one another but that for most of us, we did not get to bid farewell.  And perhaps that is a grand part of the legacy of Eleanor Hovda, she is not gone, she went on her own terms and she is with us all in our memories and in her music.

It is noteworthy that Eleanor worked with, and was in her own right, one of the greats in music and modern dance.  She surrounded herself with innovative thinkers and continued to stretch the definition of music and dance to limits some were perplexed by.  Others embraced her efforts and found it dynamic and energizing. 

Zeitgeist is a perfect ensemble to perform her work and it is a talented group she had worked with in her lifetime and one that continues to honor her memory through the performance of her work.  If you are not familiar with the work of Eleanor Hovda as a composer then the combination of her talent and the gifts of the musicians who are Zeitgeist provide the perfect introduction for you.

--Michael Garcia, Sawyer, MN



Zeitgeist: New Discoveries, Old Favorites
Oct. 3-4, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 5, 2 p.m.

Studio Z, 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200
St. Paul

$10 Friday & Sunday 
$20 Saturday*


Zeitgeist kicks off the 2014-15 season with the debut of the ensemble’s newest member, pianist Nicola Melville. A concert of favorites both old and new, the season opener features the world premiere of From Afar, the Dragon Calls by Minnesota composer Jeff Lambert, new music by Justin Rubin, Joshua Harris and Doug Opel, and long-treasured works from Eleanor Hovda and George Crumb.

Works include:
Jeff Lambert: From Afar, the Dragon Calls
Eleanor Hovda: If Tigers Were Clouds
George Crumb: Mundus Canis 
Joshua Harris: OCT 21 2015 
Doug Opel: Playtime with Elvis and Krispy
Mike Olson: Breathing Voltages
Justin Rubin: The armed man should be feared… and other lessons from the Renaissance

*Saturday’s performance includes wine, hors d'oeuvres, and a post-concert reception with pianist Nicola Melville and composer Jeff Lambert.