Music

When French composer Erik Satie wrote the music for "Parade" during World War I, he set in motion the attitude for Paris of the 1920s.
Learning to play music can be hard, but learning to compose can be even tougher. Twin Cities composer Libby Larsen has been working with some Apple Valley high school students for the past few months as they create seven brand new pieces.
When some people see art, they wonder what the artist was thinking when they made it. The Walker Art Center asked a famed jazz pianist to take that one step further. Jason Moran has created a piece of music inspired by work in the Walker's collection.
The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and University of Minnesota School of Music have formed a new partnership that will include sharing a resident conductor.
With graduation this weekend, Luther College will mark the end of an era. Its celebrated choral conductor, Weston Noble is retiring after 57 years at the helm of the college's Nordic choir. Minnesota Public Radio's Lorna Benson sat down recently with Noble to talk about his conducting career and the divine guidance that he says kept him at Luther all these years.
What looks like a dulcimer and sounds like electronically altered Balinese gamelan? The answer is the Cleophone. The Cleophone's Minneapolis inventor created it mainly for the sheer pleasure of sonic exploration.
This Sunday three Minnesota high school choirs will fan out across the stage at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis to sing compositions written just for them. It's the culmination of a three year composers residency by Cary John Franklin. He says he hopes he's shown his students that composers are real people.
Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano improvises with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of "A Man Descending."
Aaron Copland has been synonymous with American music for more than 60 years. But during the McCarthy era, not even the composer of Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man--two WWII morale boosters--was immune from Sen. Joseph McCarthy's questions about political affiliations in the thirties and forties. Classical musical host Bill Morelock traces the activities of Aaron Copland the composer and Copland the citizen leading up to a cancelled performance and an offical grilling in 1953.
It's been a little over a year since saxophonist Jeremy Walker's downtown St. Paul jazz club, Brilliant Corners, closed its doors. Walker is continuing his mission of developing jazz in the Twin Cities with the new Jazz is NOW! Orchestra.