Mid-Week Music Jones

Some of you may have heard me on the radio this past Thursday, on MPR's Art Hounds, where local arts folks talk about upcoming events that they are excited about but not directly related to their own work. This is a great feature that arts reporter Chris Roberts does weekly. So if you are not interested in one of the two mid-week offerings at The Cedar this coming Wednesday and Thursday night... Wednesday with the indy/ambient duo Windy & Carl



...and Thursday with the Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua Blue Canvas Orchestra, there's a pretty special show going on just a few blocks north of us at The Southern Theater, featuring two incredible and exciting young composers.

The first is the better known, having collaborated with Björk and an upcoming Cedar band, Grizzly Bear on their brand new CD, Veckatimest. His name is Nico Muhly. Oh, and he's had commissions by American Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opera Ballet, and English National Opera, just to do a little name-dropping. He'll be world premiering two new pieces with violist Nadia Sirota.



And if that wasn't high enough on the hip factor, the second artist is Son Lux, which is musician composer Ryan Lott, who was voted Best New Artist of 2008 by the folks at NPR Music for his extraordinary debut recording, At War with Walls and Mazes, which he will be performing pieces from, with dancers and a "3-D visual instrumentalist." Ryan says on his own blog, "I sort of wish I could be in the audience to watch this one."



This is fully cross-pollinated music, living between contemporary classical, indy rock, and electronica. In other words, file under: who cares, it's really cool stuff.