Mpls.St.Paul Magazine - Out + About - Music

Cynthia Hopkins

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:41:34 GMT

Weird:

Performance artist and musician Cynthia Hopkins is one of the most idiosyncratic and original artists working today. Pulling from a wide variety of idioms and disciplines—film, performance, folk music, science, memoir, theater—her work often looks like a madcap tapestry of fictional characters and intertwining narratives that all somehow coalesce into something extraordinary and, dare we say it, important.

WONDERFUL:

This time out, in a full-length piece called This Clement World, Hopkins takes on the looming specter of climate change. Part Arctic film documentary, part spiritual revival (there’s an eight-person choir), part theatrical commentary, the work follows an actual trip Hopkins took to the Arctic, and it asks one of the most pressing questions in history: Can human beings possibly survive their own folly? And if so, how? March 7–9. Walker Art Center, 612-375-7600, walkerart.org

Romantic New Releases: Cloud Cult and Heather Masse and Dick Hyman

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:22:06 GMT

Lock My Heart

Heather Masse and Dick Hyman

Heather Masse has one of the purest voices in the world and has gained popularity singing with The Wailin’ Jennys and as one of Garrison Keillor’s favorite guest artists. Dick Hyman is an 85-year-old jazz legend, a pianist for the ages. Together, they’ve recorded a gorgeous batch of standards from the great American songbook. For jazz audiophiles, the album is also available as a Hybrid Super Audio CD. Release Date: Feb. 12. Red House Records, redhouserecords.com

Love

CLOUD CULT

Local chamber-rock collective Cloud Cult’s ninth album is called Love, but it’s not all squishy goo songs; the CD contains several flights of inspired jam-rock and some of the most sophisticated song arrangements the band has ever produced. Cloud Cult fans should also keep their eye out for the new feature-length documentary on the band, No One Said It Would Be Easy, due out on Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon in early 2013. Release Date: March 5 (pre-orders released in early February). Earthology Records, cloudcult.com

Minnesota Opera's "Doubt"

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:39:41 GMT

Playwright John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Meryl Streep. Now, in an ambitious and original effort, Minnesota Opera is transforming Doubt yet again, into an opera that receives its world premiere at the Ordway.

At first look, Doubt may seem an unlikely choice for an opera, because it involves deep moral and philosophical themes and lots of dialogue. “[Trimming the dialogue] was a lot of what we had to do,” says composer Douglas J. Cuomo, who wrote the score. (Shanley himself wrote the libretto.) “In making it less talky, we created more space for ruminations—arias. That’s the challenge.”

Set in 1964, at the cusp of great changes in the Catholic Church, the story concerns a progressive priest, Father Flynn, who is accused by a reactionary nun, Sister Aloysius, principal of the Catholic school, of abusing the only black student, after the innocent Sister James raises suspicions.

The libretto is only about a third of the length of the original play, says Cuomo. “The story and characters are the same, but we’ve rethought it in ways that can do what the other mediums could not.” That includes the addition of the chorus, both children and adults. Also new is a more developed relationship between Sister James and Father Flynn. “There is more about Sister James. Her arc and growth are more important.”

Cuomo doesn’t come from a traditional classical background; his early training was in jazz, and those influences are clear in Doubt. “I have always been interested in new music, including contemporary classical music, and in a theatrical setting,” he says. Jan. 26–Feb. 3. Ordway Center, 345 Washington St., St. Paul, 612-333-6669, mnopera.org

Nicholas “The Feelin” Mrozinski

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:00:01 GMT

A former member of the White Iron Band, Nicholas “The Feelin” Mrozinski is a local singer/songwriter/pianist whose new CD, Together We’re Stronger, features artists from more than 40 different Twin Cities bands, including players from such storied local acts as The Big Wu, God Johnson, and Down Lo.

BORN AND RAISED: St. Paul

MUSICAL ROOTS: “I studied piano as a kid and played in lots of festivals and competitions,” Mrozinski says, “but always got points knocked off for adding stuff in my left hand.”

ON THE FEELIN: “I started my first band, Felix Feelin, when I was a sophomore in high school, and somewhere along the way people started calling me The Feelin. Because I sing with a lot of soul, I guess.”

ON RECORDING WITH FRIENDS: “Over the years, all these people had said, ‘Hey, we should record together sometime,’ so I just retraced my steps and looked for opportunities to get different players together. I wrote the songs, then I’d get these gifted musicians in the studio and just tell them to use their gift and play what they feel.”

ON THE NEW CD: “The new CD, Together We’re Stronger, is all over the map. I call it conscious soul music, but each song is its own little world, and there is movement from one tune to the other. One cool thing: I sampled my grandparents talking, so both of them are on the album.”

IPOD SHUFFLE: Neuoroacoustic composer Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, John Coltrane, the Ghost Busters soundtrack, Placido Domingo, Heatbox, Kronos Quartet.

The Gift of Local Music

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:22:51 GMT

Musical Marathon

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:35:58 GMT

If you are older than 50 and still like to go to rock concerts every now and then, there’s no way you are going to rally to see all of the boomer-era bands playing in November, no matter how much Advil and glucosamine you take. If you were to try, though, this is what your month might look like:

Right out of the gate, Madonna storms the Xcel Energy Center for two shows, Nov. 3–4. At 54, Madonna’s cone bra may be made of sturdier material these days, but she just finished taking her MDNA tour to Asia and Europe, and is by all accounts in spectacular physical shape. Lady Gaga is the reigning queen of pop, and wrestling the crown back won’t be easy, but Madonna is known for putting on deliriously choreographed shows with more dancers and costume changes than a Vogue shoot with the Rockettes. The central theme of the show is “from darkness to light,” and Madonna isn’t just referring to her hair. It’s all about the spiritual journey now—and keeping those abs flat.

You get a few days off, then on Nov. 7 his royal highness of Hibbing, Bob Dylan, takes over at Xcel with the supporting tour for his 784th album, Tempest. Dylan is enjoying yet another resurgence in popularity (his 126th) and is in fine form on the new record. In Rolling Stone, former City Pages music critic Will Hermes gave Tempest five stars, calling it Dylan’s “weirdest,” “darkest” album ever. To wit, the title track is about the sinking of the Titanic; it’s 14 minutes long and has 45 verses, with no chorus. Way to go, Bob. Can’t wait to hear that one and “Desolation Row” back to back. Ex-Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler opens, which is reason enough for some people to go.

Springsteen says his goal is still the same every night: to send you home with “your back hurting, your voice sore, and your sexual organs stimulated.”

By now you should have your parking strategy at Xcel down pat, which is good, because four days after Bob, Bruce comes to town for two shows, Nov. 11–12, dragging the E Street Band with him. If you read David Remnick’s recent profile of Springsteen in The New Yorker, you know the road is taking its toll on the band physically. (Guitarist Nils Lofgren has had two hips replaced and likens the backstage medical support team to a “MASH unit.”) But Springsteen says his goal is still the same every night: to send you home with “your back hurting, your voice sore, and your sexual organs stimulated,” though I can think of a better order for those things.

After a day to rest and unstimulate your organs, you’re thrown right back into the fray with a show at the Cedar on Nov. 14 by slide-guitar legend Sonny Landreth. A guitarist’s guitarist, Landreth plays with a hybrid fingerpicking-slide technique he developed himself, but he is best known for touring with Jimmy Buffett in the 2000s. The very next night, you have a decision to make: go see The Monkees on Nov. 15 at the State Theatre or save your energy up for the Australian Pink Floyd Experience at the Orpheum on Nov. 18? What you decide will say quite a bit about your character and musical judgment. Or maybe Christmas shows are your thing—another musical litmus test—in which case you can catch the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Christmas Rocks Extravaganza (Nov. 17) or Mannheim Steamroller Christmas (Nov. 23), both at the Orpheum.

Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent two generations of television viewers from associating its music with crime-lab technicians in Miami and New York, The Who takes command of Target Center on Nov. 27 to perform the entirety of its epic two-album rock opera from 1973, Quadrophenia—the album critics and fans adore and everyone else loves to ignore. Both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey will be there. If you are a Who fan, you cannot miss this one, no matter what you feel like at the end of November.

Now, the reckoning: If you pay top dollar to see all of these shows, your credit card will melt to the tune of $1,008.50, plus another couple grand for Ticketmaster fees, T-shirts, physical therapy, and a new hearing aid.

Merry Christmas.

Ben Kyle's "Minneapolis"

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 12:46:39 GMT

Better known as the fedora-wearing, guitar-strumming lead singer of the popular local alt-country band Romantica, Ben Kyle releases his first solo album on Nov. 13. “I just got a text from Dan Wilson saying he liked it, so that’s something,” says Kyle. One song sure to raise eyebrows is “Minneapolis,” perhaps the most unabashedly romantic love ode to the city ever penned. Sample line: “Oh Minneapolis, I saw you and St. Paul kiss / Beneath the moonlight in a Mississippi mist / Never saw a thing as beautiful as this.” And he means every word of it. “That song came as I was driving through the city one night and was overcome by the magic of the city at night. It was one of those songs that, like Neil Young says, just ‘drops out of the sky.’ The songs don’t come that way very often, but this one did.” Kyle will also be playing a CD release party with his Romantica bandmates (most of whom play on the album) at the Ritz Theater on Nov. 24. benkyle.com

Listen now:

Ben Kyle’s “Minneapolis,”

The Walker Art Center's Movies & Music Series

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:10:10 GMT

For those who can’t retreat to a lake cabin (and even for some who can), the best reason to stay in town during August is to catch the Walker Art Center’s Movies & Music nights, which have become a beloved tradition downtown. Every Monday from July 30–Aug. 20, music and movie nights kick into gear at about 7 pm with live music by bands that are often so good it’s hard to believe the event is free. The movie starts at dusk, at about 8:45 pm, and the evening wraps up at about 10:30 pm, just in time for a nightcap.

Every year the season has a loose theme. This year’s theme is “In Dreams,” and the lineup looks like this:

July 30

Music: The Minneapolis trio Night Moves won City Pages’ 2012 Best New Band Award on the strength of its superior musicianship and the originality of its psycho-country songwriting.

Movie: Spellbound, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic psychological thriller, stars Ingrid Bergman as a psychologist in a mental institution who must separate dream from reality in a patient who has amnesia.

Aug. 6

Music: Afro-pop superstar Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, one of Zimbabwe’s most popular musicians, has recorded 57 albums, and he isn’t done yet.

Movie: The surreal screwball comedy Artists and Models, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, is about a man who dreams in the genre of violent comics. The film also features a young Shirley MacLaine as the Bat Lady.

Aug. 13

Music: Rogue Valley, led by singer/songwriter Chris Koza, recorded four albums last year (one for each season). The band’s layered, melodic sound is perfect background music for a midsummer picnic.

Movie: The City of Lost Children is a surreal French film about a scientist who kidnaps children to steal their dreams, in the hope that it will prevent him from aging.

Aug. 20

Music: Local favorite Brute Heart usually performs as a trio, but for this special show the group will expand its lineup to add depth and breadth to its primal psychedelic chamber pop.

Movie: A silent film made in 1920, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a German expressionist masterpiece. For this showing, the Walker has commissioned Brute Heart to play a haunting new score for the movie.

All performances begin at 7 pm in Minneapolis’s Loring Park, except for Aug. 20, which is a special performance at the Walker’s Open Field that begins at 8:45 pm.

Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 07:46:08 GMT

Weird:

Actor Hugh Laurie is an Englishman who got famous playing a misanthropic American doctor on the television show House. In the show, the only clue to Laurie’s true nature is a piano in the corner and several vintage guitars hanging on the wall. Laurie, it turns out, is an accomplished musician whose lifelong love of the blues led him to record an album of blues covers, Let Them Talk. When it was released last year in England, the album rose to No. 2 on the charts. Only Adele prevented it from being No. 1.

WONDERFUL:

Record-store remainder bins are filled with albums by celebrities with a yen to sing and the dough to hire a professional band. So Laurie deserves some credit for playing both piano and guitar on his album, and for singing most of the lead vocals—in an American accent, no less. In concert, Laurie is reportedly gregarious and clever (he started his career in a comedy troupe), and he sings the New Orleans–style blues he loves so much with genuine passion and conviction. He spent the summer touring Europe and South America (where the album hit No. 1 in Argentina).

Aug. 18., Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-455-9500

Mill City Opera's Pagliacci

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 11:25:47 GMT

The Mill City Museum might seem like an odd venue for opera. But when Mill City Opera founder Karen Brooks and artistic director David Lefkowich saw the museum courtyard, they were smitten. “It was striking,” Lefkowich says. “There’s an opera-sized feeling to the space. There’s something sweeping and lush that seems to marry beautifully with opera.”

At the time, Brooks had been looking for opportunities to present summer opera and liked the idea of becoming Minnesota’s only outdoor opera company. But the Mill City site created some constraints. “There’s a shelf life to sitting outside, so we wanted something short but traditional,” he says. Clocking in at about 85 minutes, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci fits the bill. The verismo tale of love, jealousy, and murder among a troupe of seedy actors also fits nicely among the brick ruins of the museum courtyard. The production is set in the early 1900s, when the mill was last operational. Lefkowich also likes that it’s the story of an opera company setting up shop in a new town.

Mill City Opera is bringing in a company of nationally recognized up-and-coming singers, including tenor Richard Crawley as the jealous husband Canio, soprano Jill Gardner as wife Nedda, and baritone Andrew Wilkowske as the manipulative Tonio. The chorus will be made up of local singers.

Lefkowich has ideas for many operas that would fit well into the courtyard and hopes in future years to add a musical to run in rep with the operas. “More opera is not a bad thing,” he says—especially in summer. July 12–20. Mill City Museum, 704 S. 2nd St., Mpls., 612-341-7582, millcitysummeropera.org