The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music series and Walker Art Center Present Jherek Bischoff: COMPOSED, 10/18

On October 18 at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown Saint Paul, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music series and the Walker Art Center present Jherek Bischoff: Composed, in collaboration with Minnesota Public Radio.

"Seattle phenom" (The New Yorker) and "pop polymath" (The New York Times) Jherek Bischoff will be 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 SPCO musicians in a concert that will blend high and low, contemporary classical pieces and new contributions to the American songbook.

Roughly half of the program will be the featured vocalists interpreting works from Bischoff's album Composed, and the other half will be Bischoff's interpretations of works by the featured vocalists.

About the program Bischoff commented, "As with all of the vocalists I have collaborated with, I was struck deeply by the voices of the singers for this concert. I came across each of them organically and I knew immediately that if ever there was the chance, I would love to work with them. I am extremely excited to have been given this opportunity by Liquid Music and The Walker Art Center to create a one-time-only evening of intimate music with these spectacular artists, and my great drumming animal friend Greg Saunier."

Kate Nordstrum, Liquid Music series curator commented, "Jherek's love for making music with artists as passionate and unique as he is creates a celebratory performance atmosphere for Composed. Sondre Lerche, Ólöf Arnalds, Channy Leaneagh and Greg Saunier - singular pop/folk stars from very different spheres of influence - have never taken the stage together before but are spurred on by Jherek's inspired vision and contagious enthusiasm. Musicians of the SPCO will also participate in a night of music that is certain to be surprising and rich with beauty."

Featured Artists

Jherek Bischoff, Sondre Lerche, Ólöf Arnalds, Channy Leaneagh and Greg Saunier

Date and location:
Friday, October 18, 8:00pm

Fitzgerald Theater, Saint Paul

Single tickets: $25
Tickets to this event can be purchased through the SPCO as part of the Liquid Music series. For single tickets and all other tickets inquiries, contact the Fitzgerald Theater box office directly to avoid Ticketmaster fees or contact Ticketmaster outlets online or by phone at 1.800.982.2787.

thespco.org/liquidmusic

651.291.1144

Please note: The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra does not perform on this program.

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.

Walker Art Center

One of the most celebrated art museums in the country, the Walker Art Center is known for presenting today's most compelling artists, as well as modern masters, including Andy Warhol, Matthew Barney, Jasper Johns, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, and Kara Walker. In addition to traveling exhibitions and its world-renowned collection, the Walker presents a broad array of contemporary music, dance, and theater, and the best in film from around the world and down the block. The Walker's 11-acre Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is one of the country's largest urban sculpture parks. At its center is the beloved Twin Cities landmark-the playful fountain-sculpture Spoonbridge and Cherry. The Garden features more than 40 works of art and the Cowles Conservatory.

Liquid Music press

"Best of Classical." - The New York Times (Fall Arts Preview 2012)

"A broad-ranging program of innovative new music by the hottest composers and musicians working today. This is as cool as classical music gets." - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine (Best New Music Series 2012)

"A line of challenging, forward-thinking performances... the series is a veritable who's who of avant-garde music today, featuring composers and performers known for pushing the boundaries of both music and art." - l'etoile

"Strong, varied and provocative...fearless." - MinnPost

"Stunningly unique shows in Twin Cities theaters... There's too much talent to ignore." - Secrets of the City

Biographies

Seattle-based JHEREK BISCHOFF is equal parts songwriter, producer, performer and composer. He has also been called a "pop polymath" (The New York Times), a "Seattle phenom" (The New Yorker), and "the missing link between the sombre undertones of Ennio Morricone and the unpredictability of John Cale" (NME). In his 30-odd years Jherek has played in numerous bands and musical configurations including Parenthetical Girls, Xiu Xiu, The Degenerate Art Ensemble, The Dead Science, the Wordless Music Orchestra, and other musicians from around the world. Jherek is an instinctive collaborator who trusts himself to be his own best teacher. Indeed, all this music-making has largely been self-taught.

His new album, "Composed", is a meticulously arranged, multi-tracked album of nine orchestral pieces featuring a different guest vocalist on almost every track, including luminaries David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, Mirah, Carla Bozulich (Evangelista, Geraldine Fibbers), Craig Wedren (Shudder To Think), Dawn McCarthy (Faun Fables), Zac Pennington (Parenthetical Girls), Soko and more. Avant ringers like Deerhoof's Greg Saunier and Wilco's Nels Cline provide instrumental solos. Jherek first composed the album on a ukulele. Next he produced, engineered, and mastered the album, resolving to achieve an orchestral sound without the orchestral cost by recording the music one instrument at a time using just one mic and a laptop. The result bares traces of his past playing in DIY bands, his desire to make great pop music, and a love affair with the potential of the orchestra, all informed by his deep familiarity of a catalog of compositional ideas & technique.

"Ask me anything you like/I'll reveal everything," Sondre Lerche sang on 2002 single "Sleep On Needles," and the Norwegian musician has spent the last decade proving his lines true. To call him a singer-songwriter might be the technical term, but he's been a jazz bandleader, a punk howler, a would-be Springsteen, a transatlantic teen idol - not bad for a guy pushing 30. On Sept. 4, he'll pause and look back with vinyl reissues of his first four albums, some dozen-plus digital bonus tracks and Bootlegs, his first-ever live document. Lerche's career famously started young: debut album Faces Down bowed at the tail end of his teenage years, starting a national frenzy that landed him a Best New Artist trophy at the Norwegian Grammys, and made Rolling Stone's list of albums and debuts of the year. As a musician whose ceaseless ambition has led him down some half-dozen paths - including the inspired, eclectic songs of 2011's Sondre Lerche and 2009's Heartbeat Radio - Bootlegs, due Sept. 4, connects the dots between Bacharach and Bruce, between Bergen and Brooklyn. It finds him on the same map as modern peers including Jens Lekman, Regina Spektor and the Shins' James Mercer, though the songwriter's always charted his own course.

ÓLÖF ARNALDS is an Icelandic singer and multi-instrumentalist. Classically educated on the violin, viola and self-taught on guitar and charango, Ólöf's most distinctive asset is, nonetheless, her voice. A voice of instantly captivating, spring water chasteness possessed of a magical, otherworldly quality that is simultaneously innocent yet ancient ("somewhere between a child and an old woman" according to no less an authority than Björk). While she has been favorably compared with the likes of Vashti Bunyan, Judee Sill and Kate Bush, Ólöf's approach to making music remains highly individual: playful but intimate; accessible and uplifting, yet deeply personal and suffused with a timeless mystique that goes beyond the puckish inscrutability of her native tongue. Ólöf has also quickly proved herself as a magnetic, utterly self-assured stage performer, reliant as much on screwball humor, vaudevillian charm and even outright bawdiness, as much as the contrasting delicacy of her song delivery. Originally released in 2007, Ólöf's debut album, Við og Við was included in both eMusic and Paste Magazine's 100 Best Albums of the Decade lists. Ólöf was named Iceland's Composer of the Year in 2010 for the songs on her second album, Innundir skinni. The record also made Uncut Magazine's Top 50 Albums of 2010 and was nominated for the inaugurAl Nordic Music Prize.

CHANNY LEANEAGH is currently the lead singer and songwriter for the band Poliça. Poliça formed in 2011, and their first album, Give You the Ghost (Mom + Pop records), has received acclaim from the Guardian, NPR, Huffington Post and others. Poliça's global touring has included Live with Jools Holland, Austin City Limits, Radio City Music Hall, SXSW, Coachella, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and elsewhere. Coming up: Poliça will be playing the London leg of the Night + Day Festival, curated by the XX, and Poliça's second album is scheduled to release this Fall. Before Poliça, Channy performed with the groups Gayngs (vocals) and Roma di Luna (vocals, arrangements). Most recently, she has collaborated with Justin Vernon, Leftfield and Marijuana Deathsquads. A trained dancer and violinist, Channy has served as a mentor and educator to youth, both nationally and internationally.

GREG SAUNIER heard "Start Me Up" when he was 13 and from that day forward has devoted his life to rock music. In the early 90s, after training as a classical musician at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he moved to San Francisco and formed Deerhoof. The band has forged a convulsive, improvisatory playing style. He continues to this day as the drummer for Deerhoof as well as increasing involvements as a composer, improviser and producer in collaboration with artists such as Sean Lennon, Jherek Bischoff and Ensemble Dal Niete.

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