Hilary Hahn, ETHEL and More Set for SPCO's 2013-14 Liquid Music Series

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's pioneering Liquid Music series announces its 2013-14 schedule of events. This is the second season for Liquid Music, a series that seeks to expand the world of classical music through innovative new projects, boundary-defying artists, and unique presentation formats. Each program features new works, world or regional premieres, or new collaborations including many artists working together for the first time.

Highlights of the season include a collaboration with Hilary Hahn and Berlin-based prepared pianist/composer Hauschka on January 12 at Aria (Theatre de la Jeune Lune's former performance space) co-presented with The Schubert Club's new Mix series, Olga Bell with collaborators Tom Vek and Angel Deradoorian on February 13 at the Walker Art Center's William and Nadine McGuire Theater co-presented with the Walker Art Center and American Composers Forum, and the Seattle-based composer Jherek Bischoff with special guests Sondre Lerche, Ólöf Arnalds, Poliça's Channy Leaneagh and Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier at the Fitzgerald Theater co-presented with The Walker Art Center and in association with Minnesota Public Radio.

Also of note is the multimedia project Documerica featuring alternative string quartet ETHEL and work by commissioned composers Mary Ellen Childs,Ulysses Owens Jr., Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate and James Kimo Williams, directed by Steve Cosson with projection design by Deborah Johnsonusing manipulated vintage photos from Project Documerica, a 1970s photographic archive commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency. Co-presented with Schubert Club Mix and the American Composers Forum, this will be the production's first performance outside of New York.

Liquid Music extends the traditional boundaries of classical music programming this season by commissioning music to be experienced within a communal but non-performance setting. Singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, composer Son Lux and rapper Serengeti will create new work in celebration of visual artistJim Hodges' Walker Art Center retrospective exhibition, opening February 14 in Walker Art Center galleries.

Another exciting element of 2013-14 is the use of concert spaces that uniquely fit each project including The Historic Fitzgerald Theater, Music Room at SPCO Center, Walker Art Center's William and Nadine McGuire Theater, Amsterdam Bar & Hall and Aria. Liquid Music continues its strong partnerships with the Walker Art Center (three co-presentations and one co-commission), Amsterdam Bar and Hall (two co-presentations) and New Amsterdam Presents (two joint presentations), and for the first time partners with Schubert Club Mix (two co-presentations) and American Composers Forum (three co-presentations).

"Liquid Music is a series for the wide-eyed and open-hearted concert goer," said series curator Kate Nordstrum. "It is all too rare that people go to performances expecting to hear something completely new or experience something totally unexpected. But Liquid Music audiences are all about the communal joy that can be found in shared artistic discovery... It is a tremendous pleasure to bring such adventurous listeners together with the maverick music makers of our day."

Nordstrum has been widely praised for her programmatic vision and catholic tastes, with media outlets describing her as "the most adventurous music curator in town" (MinnPost), "a presenter of rare initiative" (Star Tribune) and "Twin Cities' curatorial powerhouse with international pull" (Minnesota Public Radio). Composer Nico Muhly, with whom Nordstrum has worked with since 2007, has called her "the impresario of Twin Cities new music" (Minnesota Monthly).

The inaugural Liquid Music season (2012-13) saw sold-out houses and audiences of all ages take in world and regional premieres by Laurie Anderson, Ben Frost, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Valgeir Sigurðsson, Jace Clayton and Reid Anderson (The Bad Plus).

Liquid Music 2013-14: Full schedule of events:

Shared evening

ZOLA JESUS

New arrangements by Stephen Prutsman featuring Steven Copes, Ruggero Allifranchini, Maiya Papach, and cellist TBA

IAN DING AND ASHLEY BATHGATE

Percussion and cello duo featuring a world premiere by Ted Hearne and regional premieres by Nick Didkovsky, Osvaldo Golijov, Andy Akiho and Annie Gosfield

Sunday, Sept 22 at 7pm

Amsterdam Bar & Hall

Nika Danilova, the woman behind Zola Jesus, brings her epic, iconoclastic sound-full of dark evocative beauty-to Saint Paul in a first time collaboration with esteemed composer and former SPCO artistic partner Stephen Prutsman. Prutsman has created new arrangements of original compositions by Danilova for string quartet, piano, chamber organ and electronics, which will be performed by SPCO principal musicians and Prutsman himself. Danilova's classically trained "indomitable" (Spin) voice draws from industrial, classical, electronic and experimental rock influences. Building on the success of her highly acclaimed 2011 album Conatus ("Each song overflows with emotion" - NPR; "Powerfully reflective music" - Vogue), she has recently collaborated with David Lynch and French musical act M83. Prutsman's arrangements have been performed by the Kronos Quartet, Dawn Upshaw, Yo Yo Ma, among others; he's also internationally acknowledged as one of the finest American pianists of his generation.

The evening opens with a set by percussionist Ian Ding (New Music Detroit founder and Artist in Residence at the University of Michigan) and Bang on a Can All-Stars cellist Ashley Bathgate, hailed by critics as a "brilliant, rising star." Committed performers of new music, Ding and Bathgate will introduce the singular voices of contemporary composers Nick Didkovsky, Osvaldo Golijov, Andy Akiho, Annie Gosfield, and a world premiere by Ted Hearne.

Tickets: $10

JHEREK BISCHOFF: Composed

Featuring guest vocalists Sondre Lerche, Ólöf Arnalds and Channy Leaneagh alongside a chamber ensemble of Twin Cities instrumentalists, Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier, and more to be announced

Co-presented with the Walker Art Center, in collaboration with Minnesota Public Radio

Friday, October 18 at 8pm

Fitzgerald Theater

"Bischoff is a hugely talented composer, with sky-high ambitions." - Pitchfork

"Seattle phenom" (The New Yorker) and "pop polymath" (The New York Times) Jherek Bischoff is joined by an all-star cast of guest vocalists and instrumentalists including celebrated Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche, Icelandic folk chanteuse Ólöf Arnalds (múm), Poliça's beguiling lead singer Channy Leaneagh, Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier, and some of the Twin Cities' finest instrumentalists in a concert that will blend high and low, contemporary classical pieces and new contributions to the American songbook.

Tickets: $25

ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE

Co-presented with the American Composers Forum

Tuesday, November 5 at 7:30pm

Music Room at SPCO Center

"Dal Niente is a model of what contemporary music needs, but seldom gets, to reach and engage a wider public." - Chicago Tribune

Contemporary chamber music and synched video combine in a world premiere work by Minnesota composer Noah Keesecker. Ensemble Dal Niente's program also includes music by Rebecca Saunders, John Cage, Ashley Fure, Stefan Prins, and Enno Poppe. Expect "the kind of evening-intellectually stimulating, impeccably performed and full of surprising, jaw-dropping beauty-that lingers in the mind long after the final note has faded" (Chicago Classical Review).

Tickets: $10

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER AND TIM HECKER

Co-presented with the Walker Art Center

Saturday, November 16 at 8pm

William and Nadine McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center

"Few modern performers manipulate sound quite as aggressively or effectively as Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin." - National Public Radio

Two leading international electronic experimentalists share an aurally adventurous evening of light and shadow that dips deep into drone, ambient, distortion and beyond. The evening begins in near darkness with Hecker's physical and emotive exploration of dissonance and melody which The New York Timeshas described as "foreboding, abstract pieces in which static and sub-bass rumbles open up around slow moving notes and chords, like fissures in the earth waiting to swallow them whole." And a special collaboration closes the night: Known for his lush and layered pieces formed by sound swatches and electronic washes punctuated with field recordings and sampled loops, Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) joins forces with artist Nate Boyce and his hallucinatory computer-generated films for an ear-opening and eye-opening investigation into sound and vision. Lopatin's revelatory music "opens our ears to new sonic possibilities and, more importantly, forces us to reconsider and rewire some of our most basic assumptions" (Wired).

Tickets: $18

HILARY HAHN AND HAUSCHKA: Silfra

Co-presented with Schubert Club Mix

Sunday, January 12 at 7pm

Aria

"[Silfra is] a mesmerizing flux of density and perspective." - The New York Times

Two contemporary innovators present music from their free-spirited and ambitious release Silfra (2012). With a flawless technique and a knack for razor-sharp performance, the prodigiously talented American violinist Hilary Hahn is known for her probing interpretations, technical brilliance and commitment to new music. Hauschka is the alias of classically-trained German pianist composer Volker Bertelmann, whose work as Hauschka is based upon a playful exploration of the 'prepared' piano. Like Hahn, Hauschka is no stranger to collaboration, whether with formal outfits or acclaimed bands like Calexico and múm.

Tickets: $25

OLGA BELL: Origin/Outcome

With Tom Vek and Angel Deradoorian

Visual design by Alejandro Crawford

Co-presented with the Walker Art Center and American Composers Forum

Thursday, Feb 13 at 8pm

William and Nadine McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center

"With a background in classical piano and a love for everything electronic, Bell's music is her own confection-a world of layered beats, swirling synth textures, and sometimes poppy, sometimes haunting, but always beautiful vocals." - The Consequence of Sound

From ancient folk traditions to modern club music, Origin/Outcome is a celebration of the hot-blooded human vernacular - the music to which we dance, eat, grieve and revel - by "powerful [new music] advocate" (The New York Times) Olga Bell and collaborators Tom Vek and Angel Deradoorian. With a range as wide as working with Dawn Upshaw and Das Racist indicates, composer/performer Bell (Dirty Projectors) unfolds a two-part evening of compelling new sounds that features a chamber ensemble composed of Twin Cities- and Brooklyn-based musicians and dazzling projections by video artist Alejandro Crawford (MGMT). The evening opens with the world premiere of Bell's nine-movement song cycle Krai, a richly imagined sonic love letter to her Russian homeland. The night also contains the debut of Nothankyou, Bell's cross-Atlantic partnership with British musician Tom Vek ("a marvelous new pop star in the classical mold" - The Guardian) whose self-coined "beat-rock" emphasizes angular compositions that groove. Respected vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Angel Deradoorian (former Dirty Projectors) contributes throughout.

Tickets: $18

S/S/S: Jim Hodges Retrospective music experience

New music by the collaborative trio of Serengeti, Son Lux and Sufjan Stevens, inspired by the work of visual artist Jim Hodges

Co-commissioned with the Walker Art Center

February 14-May 11, 2014

Walker Art Center galleries

"Music's least likely supergroup has stumbled upon a weirdly unique sound all its own." - Paste Magazine

Rapper Serengeti, composer/producer Son Lux and singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens offer listeners "an odd mix of personalities and musical styles [resulting in] something quite beautiful" (The Consequence of Sound). Inspired by the work of contemporary visual artist Jim Hodges, the trio will release its sophomore recording in conjunction with the first comprehensive survey of Hodges' work in the U.S., opening at the Walker Art Center February 2014. The exhibition will feature the new music, with further details to be announced fall 2014.

TIMO ANDRES: Work Songs

Featuring Gabriel Kahane, Ted Hearne, Becca Stevens and Nathan Koci

March 21 & 22 at 8pm

Music Room at SPCO Center

"Unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene." - The New Yorker

Inspired by old fashioned American parlor songs, composer and pianist Timo Andres has crafted his own multi-movement set of "work songs" set to texts about professions, jobs, and labor. Praised for his "acute ear" by the New York Times' Anthony Tommasini and "stubborn nose" by the New Yorker's Alex Ross, Andres makes his Twin Cities debut with this new song cycle specifically created for fellow rising-star composers and multi-instrumentalists Gabriel Kahane, Ted Hearne, Becca Stevens and Nathan Koci. Arrangements are tailored to the group's unique strengths, with the singers joining in on guitar, keyboard and banjo. The program will also include individual work from each musician/composer with support from the collective.

Tickets: $10

DANIEL BJARNASON AND NADIA SIROTA

Featuring concert centerpiece Sleep Variations by Bjarnason for Sirota and chamber ensemble

Tuesday, May 6 at 7:30pm

Amsterdam Bar and Hall

"[Bjarnason] creates a sound that comes eerily close to defining classical music's undefinable brave new world". - Time Out New York

"[Nadia Sirota is] the beating heart of radical modern classical music." - PopMatters

Daniel Bjarnason created his stirring viola concerto Sleep Variations expressly for widely-heralded violist Nadia Sirota, which Music Press Daily called "14 minutes of sonic tossing and turning that is likely to be considered one of the greatest triumphs of his career." Co-founder and chief conductor of the Isafold Chamber Orchestra and Composer of the Year recipient at the Iceland Music Awards (2012), Bjarnason's music is "the sound of fire and instinct, the musical equivalent of a controlled burn" (The Silent Ballet). The concert will also showcase Bjarnason's significant work Bow to String, Judd Greenstein's eloquent and transfixing The Night Gatherers, and music from Sirota's sophomore album Baroque, "a mind-blowing collection" (Chicago Reader),"technical and beautiful music of a higher order than anything else you will hear this year" (PopMatters).

Tickets: $10

ETHEL: Documerica

New work by commissioned composers Mary Ellen Childs, Ulysses Owens Jr., Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate and James Kimo Williams

Directed by Steve Cosson

Projection design by Deborah Johnson

Co-presented with Schubert Club Mix and American Composers Forum

Tuesday, June 3 at 7:30pm

Aria

"ETHEL created a world in which classical music had never gown distant, a world in which it was as fresh and direct as crowds dancing in the street." - The Wall Street Journal

A meditation on America's relationship to our land-and to today's environmental and social issues-the multimedia work Documerica melds multiple-screen video projections with music by some of today's top composers, performed with electrifying virtuosity by alternative string quartet ETHEL. Created in collaboration with projections designer Deborah Johnson (Sufjan Stevens' BQE) and directed by Steve Cosson, Documerica juxtaposes manipulated vintage 1970s visuals with the music of now. Inspired by and showcasing evocative imagery from Project Documerica, a 1970s photographic archive commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency, the program explores this compelling snapshot of a tumultuous era.

Tickets: $25

Liquid Music ticket information: Subscriptions and single tickets on sale now. Season subscriptions: Attend all performances for just $141. Option to add on the Zola Jesus and Stephen Prutsman/Ian Ding and Ashley Bathgate split bill performance on September 22 for $10. All Liquid Music subscribers also receive 2 free ticket vouchers for best available seats to any regular SPCO concert and the flexibility of free exchanges should they not be able to make it to a performance. Single tickets: $10-$25 at thespco.org/liquidmusic or by calling 651.291.1144.

Liquid Music is a new concert series presented by The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra that seeks to expand the world of classical music through innovative new projects, boundary-defying artists, and unique presentation formats. Liquid Music performances invite adventurous audiences of all ages to discover the new and the fascinating among the kaleidoscopic landscape of classical music today. For more information, visit thespco.org/liquidmusic.

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