416 Club Commissions: Cedar Cultural Center presents "super interesting ideas" from Minnesota composers

For the past three years the Cedar Cultural Center has been hosting and organizing a series of performances showcasing local Twin Cities musicians who compose new pieces that cross genre boundaries. The 416 Club is a program, funded by the Jerome Foundation, to support the production of new works by emerging artists.

"Each year the Cedar has relationships with a lot of local artists, because we present 200 or so shows every year," said Adrienne Dorn, the Cedar's director of development. "The Jerome Foundation is interested in this because the organization seeks to support emerging artists, and that's the purpose of [the] 416 [Club]."

The program takes its name from the venue's address: 416 Cedar Avenue. Participating artists are each given $2,500: $2,000 for the commission, and $500 for production expenses.

This year's seven participants were selected by a panel of Twin Cities music industry professionals including record label owners, music educators, local musicians, and Cedar staff. This year's participants are Jackie Beckey, Joe Horton, Sara Pajunen, Kyle Sobczak, Noah Keesecker, Nicolas Carter, and Greg Brosofske. The performances range from a musical memorial for the late University of Minnesota professor John Berryman (Brosofske) to a choreographed ping-pong game that will trigger audio, video, and lighting installations (Keesecker).

"It's so interesting to see talent that we have here locally," Dorn said. "In the first year we specifically said, we want you to do a collaboration with another artist, and then in the second and third years we kind of said, 'Tell us what you would do.' I was a little bit concerned that wasn't enough direction, but we got 104 applications this year, and there's just some super interesting ideas."

One of this year's commissions is by Jackie Beckey — a classically trained violist best known as a member of the band Brute Heart — whose commission piece creates both a musical composition and art instillation.

"I want to draw from being a trained musician and being able to read complicated rhythms using sheet music rather than chord charts," Beckey said. "So it's a little more complicated than a band kind of writing style. But it's definitely not classical in how it sounds. I'm really inspired by the style of Ugandan music."

The piece takes these nontraditional ideas and sounds and translates them to Western instruments: electric bass, viola, and cello.

"It's really rhythmic and has a specific tonality to it." Beckey said. "It will have two electric bassists, so they'll be amplified and louder."

Beckey used part of her commission stipend to hire a local digital artist to create a tapestry-like backdrop for the performance and a canvas tent for the ensemble to play under.

"The idea is to have this interactive piece and have the audience members be able to get involved." Beckey said, "I want us to play on the floor where the audience members can walk around us and be under the tent. More interactive and reciprocal; it's not just a one-way music interpretation."

Another emerging artist showcasing work is Greg Brosofske, who complied a kind of memorial for local poet John Berryman (1914-1972).

"I was attracted to the poetry and the character of John Berryman," Brosofske said. "I had the idea: wouldn't it be cool to do some music that incorporated poetry and used that as a jumping-off point."

The piece is a fugue-like conversation among many musical voices to mirror the style of The Dream Songs, a collection of poems by Berryman.

"It's my own conception, my own idea, so that's what's totally great," Brosofske said. "I'm using some video of John Berryman reading his poems and audio from him; the piece itself has a kind of [...] theatric quality to it."

The commission allows artists the freedom to draw their inspiration from anything they see fit, as long as they are able to compose at least 30 minutes of new material.

"A lot of people have said that they've been sitting on ideas for awhile but just didn't have the means to make them possible," said Sage Dahlen, artistic director of the Cedar. "Sometimes they've been thinking about it for years, and sometimes they just come up with an idea because the opportunity presents itself.

"If this can continue to be a springboard for transformation that would be really cool," Dahl continued. "I would like the series to continue to make these kinds of performances possible."

This year's 416 Club Commissions will be presented on successive Monday evenings beginning January 13 and running through February 25. Tickets and additional information are available at thecedar.org. 416 Club artists will also be featured on the Current's Local Show this Sunday, January 12 (6:00-8:00 p.m.).

Kaitlin Lokowich is a born-and-raised Minnesotan, currently finishing a double major in journalism and communications at the University of Minnesota--Duluth. Apart from writing she is an aspiring world traveler, Seinfeld lover, and pizza enthusiast.