From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Azure Anderson of St. Paul is an artist, musician, and podcaster, and she’s a huge fan of Phantom Chorus Theatre.

They are re-mounting the founders’ 2019 production of “Razia’s Shadow,” a puppet rock opera. The production contains 12 songs by Forgive Durden, performed live, with a new cast of puppet characters ranging in size from two to eight feet.

The show runs April 10–25 at the Hive Collaborative in St. Paul. In-person and live-streamed tickets are available. While not designed as a children’s show, Anderson says the show is recommended for ages six and older due to a few spooky elements; if your child enjoys Tim Burton’s film “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” this show should be a good fit.

Having seen all Phantom Chorus’s productions for the past three years, Anderson raves about them.

Azure says: “The visuals are always incredible. The music's always incredible. And the technical aspect never misses.

— Azure Anderson

For Hannah Olanrewaju of St. Paul, sewing means community. She’s looking forward to Twin Cities Frocktails, an evening event where attendees are invited (though not required) to wear clothes they made themselves.

This year’s theme is “Making Through the Decades.” Frocktails takes place 6 to 10 p.m., Saturday, April 11 at Steady Pour in Minneapolis.

Hannah describes the vibe of the first Frocktails in 2024.

Hannah says: There's something so uniquely wonderful about being in a room with people who've made at least one part of their outfit and can really speak the same language as you do. And so, I remember walking around with my bingo sheet and getting to know people and where they're from.

They're asking you about your outfit, and you're asking them about their outfit. And so by the end of the night, you're saying goodbye to all these people that you've really never met before, but now, you’re finding ways to keep in touch.

I think that's something that's so beautiful about Frocktails and about sewing, specifically, that I don't think I've been able to find anywhere else.

— Hannah Olanrewaju

John Sievers is a trombonist from Rochester, but tonight, he’s looking forward to an event that celebrates poetry. The Southeastern Minnesota Poets will hold their next Bright Lights Poetry Night tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the historic Chateau Theatre.

The theme of tonight’s reading is “Emergence.”

John says: This event is really a community event that is encouraging people to come together as people who are interested in language and words and poetry.

And I just love the fact that I can hear people from my community sharing their deep thoughts about important themes in today's society.

— John Sievers

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Christine Sweet, a retired classical music radio host in St. Paul, is looking forward to seeing Minneapolis Musical Theatre’s production of "Grumpy Old Men," a musical adaptation of the 1993 romcom set in Wabasha.

The musical runs April 3–19 at the Conn Theater in Minneapolis.

Christine says: MMT brings us new and rarely performed musicals, digging deep to find forgotten gems and often presenting the local premieres of chosen works, which is the case with this production of “Grumpy Old Men.”

After a hard winter, we could use some belly laughs at the foibles of two lifelong rivals vying through snow and ice-fishing for the attention of their attractive new neighbor.

MMT draws on the Twin Cities' wealth of vocal, instrumental and theatrical talent, and I can’t wait to hear what they do with the soundtrack, which was commercially recorded just two years ago.”

— Christine Sweet

Carolyn Pool, a writer and performer in St. Paul, recommends seeing “Ada Lovelace: Bride of Science,” a new play staged by nimbus theatre.

Daughter of the famed poet Lord Byron, Lovelace (1815-1852) was a mathematical genius who invented the Analytical Engine, a prototype for early computers. Carolyn says this play offers a great way to introduce children to an important historical figure in STEM. This show has sliding scale tickets. It runs April 4–19 at The Crane Theater in northeast Minneapolis.

The play is written by Twin Cities performer Nissa Nordland, who is also the head of the Twin Cities Horror Fest.

Carolyn says: [Nordlund] has a very, very big interest in both science and beauty and poetry. And so this is going to be, yes, a play about a woman in science, and it's going to be poetic, full of beautiful language and stellar performances.

— Carolyn Pool

Brie Taralson owns Lykke Books, across the street from the Grand Center for Arts and Culture in New Ulm. She wants people to see the beautiful quiltwork on display in the Grand’s current exhibition, “Picking Up the Piecework: A Legacy of Creativity Through the Lens of Mary Hartten.”

After Hartten, an avid quilter, died, her family gave her fabric and unfinished piecework to be sold to benefit The Grand. This exhibit features quilts that have been made — in a variety of styles — using those pieces, thus continuing Hartten’s legacy. The exhibit runs through April 24.

On Sat. April 10 at 5 p.m., Mary’s son Randy Hartten will give a presentation about “An Unfinished Project,” a printed book of 54 of Mary’s quilt squares. Brie describes that project.

Brie says: What's really neat is you can actually see the “finished side” on one and flip the book over and see exactly how precise she was and how complicated the stitching was on the other side. And so you get a true behind-the-scenes look at how much math and geometry and and precision that was needed to do this well.

[Mary’s children] had this bound, and the the book itself is a piece of art. It's quite literally stitched together of her quilt pieces.

— Brie Taralson

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Becca Buntjer of South St. Paul is looking forward to taking her kids to see the world premiere of the play “The Girl Who Drank the Moon” at Stages Theatre Company in Hopkins. The play is an adaptation of the novel by Minneapolis author and Newbery Medalist Kelly Barnhill.

The play runs March 27 through April 19 with performances both during school hours and on weekends. The show is 75 minutes long and is recommended for audiences age 10 and up. There is a special meet-the-author and book-signing event 6-7 p.m. on April 4 before that evening’s show.

Buntjer can’t wait to see a book her family loves adapted for the stage.

Buntjer says: It is a fantastical world with a fun, magic structure, and it's got sweet characters. It is about a young girl named Luna, and she you get to see her grow up as she learns about magic, forgets magic and then learns about it again.

She has this beautiful relationship with Xan, the old witch. You get to see how the different villages that Xan interacts with view her role as the witch. Is she the helper, or is she someone to be feared?

Pro tip: There’s a free parking garage half a block from the theater.

— Becca Buntjer

Kim Kivens is an actor based in Crystal who has performed before with Six Points Theater, but she’s looking forward to being in the audience for their upcoming production, the world premiere of the play “Vienna, Vienna, Vienna.”

The show follows three generations of women connecting over pastries in Vienna, from where the grandmother fled as a child. The show runs Sat. March 28 through April 12 at Highland Park Community Center in St. Paul. The play is 90 minutes without intermission.

Kim says: Six Points is a theater that I love. They are telling stories that are rooted in Judaism, which is close to me, because I happen to be Jewish — but they are universal stories.

— Kim Kivens

Erin Makela is an educator and author in Worthington, and she’s looking forward to seeing the play “Silent Sky” at Minnesota West Community and Technical College. The show marks director Eric Parrish’s 50th production.

“Silent Sky” tells the story of Henrietta Leavitt, a 19th-century astronomer and computer (meaning she did the math and science calculations) at Harvard. Though only men were allowed to touch the telescopes, Leavitt’s careful calculations unlocked a key tool for understanding the distance between stars and galaxies.

The play runs March 27-29 at the Worthington Campus Fine Arts Theater. Parrish will be honored after the Friday evening show. Following the Saturday evening show, astronomy instructor Paul Seifert will host a star party with telescopes available to view the night sky. After the Sunday matinee, there will be a talk-back with cast and crew.

As a preview, Erin says: The set looks like a lot of fun. They've got it set up to look like an observatory at the top, and there are different constellations that will be appearing throughout the show on the background.

— Erin Makela

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

As Artistic Director of the Twin Cities Women’s Choir, Randi Grundahl Rexroth loves Women’s History Month and the opportunity to empower women’s voices. She’s looking forward to the opening of Twin Cities actress Sandra Struthers’ new play “Hungry Like the Wolf," which tells the story of the 1977 bank strike in Willmar.

In the first bank strike in the U.S., eight women demanded equal pay with their male counterparts. The show features an all-female directing and design team. See it at the History Theatre in St. Paul, Saturday, March 21 through April 12.

Randi is looking forward to an engaging show with strong 80s vibes.

Randi says: The script is fast-paced and guaranteed to speak directly to us Gen Xers. Sandra Struthers uses comedy to engage the audience and discuss really difficult subjects like gender and gender inequity and double standards and harassment.

The cast includes Sandra and Jen Maren, who last teamed up at the History Theatre's production of ‘Glensheen,’ Allison Vincent, Sam Landman and History Theatre veteran JJen Burleigh-Bentz.

— Randi Grundahl Rexroth

Allison Amy Wedell is the Alto Two Section Leader of the Twin Cities Women's Choir, and she’s looking forward to great singing on display in “The Yeoman of the Guard; Or, The Merry and His Maid” from The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company.

Allison says this tragicomedy is “a little more opera than operetta” with a wider range of emotion than some of their satires. Performances run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through March 29 at the Conn Theater at the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. The March 28 performance will be livestreamed.

Allison says it’s one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most musically ambitious works, staged by local talent:

Allison says: It's music-directed by Dr. Randal Buikema and it's directed by Gary Briggle. I personally know Gary Briggle as an actor from his 10-year run in “Glensheen” at the History Theatre, but I'm really looking forward to seeing him apply his considerable musical theater talent to this show.

— Allison Amy Wedell

Alejandra Pelinka is the Director of Creative Placemaking for the City of Bloomington, and she feels fortunate that she gets to see art exhibits curated by Artistry in the building where she works.

On display right now is Kat Corrigan’s exhibit “Minnesota Neighbors.” The series of vibrant paintings of Minnesota animals runs through April 19 in the Atrium Gallery at the Bloomington Center for the Arts.

Alejandra says: What I really love about this exhibit is how it really makes you slow down and notice the animals we live alongside every day.

You'll see a very loose, expressive painting method. And what I love about that is it gives it motion, and it gives it emotion as well. With this exhibit, specifically, you feel like you're not just looking at an animal, but it feels like you're kind of meeting it.

— Alejandra Pelinka

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Koreen Valdovinos runs Open Minds Fusion Studio. She met Sherry Walling when they were both training to be aerial arts instructors 10 years ago, and Valdovinos is looking forward to seeing Walling’s next circus production, “Touching Two Worlds: Reality.”

Walling, who is also a clinical psychologist and author, partners with circus performer Lynn Lunny to create circus shows whose narratives focus on mental wellbeing. Shows are March 13 and 14 at Luminary Arts in Minneapolis, with a Circus Experience option that allows ticketholders to try out some circus arts for themselves on Sunday.

Koreen says this circus show revolves around themes of loss, embodiment, and healing through movement.

Koreen says: One of the greatest parts about watching good aerial dance performances is the shared feeling--almost like co-regulating with the people in the audience and the performers.

— Koreen Valdovinos

Theater artist Tinia Moulder is a big fan of Prime Productions, which mounts plays featuring roles for women over 50. She’s looking forward to the world premiere of Nathan Yungerberg’s play “Abuelita.”

Directed by Shá Cage, the show runs at the Capri Theater in Minneapolis March 14-29 (preview night March 13).

Tinia says: I'm drawn to this show because not only is it featuring, four women of different races over the age of 50, but it's also a story of a multiracial family, and it's written by a man who is part of a multiracial family through adoption himself and through raising his own children.

And that reflects my own family as well. [The play takes us] to Spanish Harlem, summer of 1983, and there is a white Midwestern grandmother who wants to expose her mixed-race grandson to his Puerto Rican culture. So we have women that are trading wisdom and laughs and trauma and reflections from the past and looking forward to the future.

— Tinia Moulder

D’Mitry Lewman is an artist in Fargo, North Dakota, where he partners with Ted Martin at Ted Martin Art. He recommends seeing Eric A. Johnson’s exhibit “Periphery: Paintings + Reduction Relief Prints” at the Rourke Art Gallery and Museum in Moorhead, Minn. The show is on view through April 12 with an artist talk March 22 at 2 p.m.

D’Mitry says the wavy lines and clever titling of Johnson’s work invokes Vincent Van Gogh. To make reduction relief prints, Lewman says, “You take the initial block of wood and you carve away at it, you print on that, and then you continue to reduce it down into basically nothing.”

D’Mitry says: I just really feel like I connect with his work through his colors and his expressive lines. On display will be not only his printmaking, but his experiments within abstract art.

There are these beautiful, intricate gradients that almost look like squares of quilts and really engaging pieces all around.

— D’Mitry Lewman

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Kayla Maria of Fort Ripley is an avid arts consumer, and she recommends a visit to the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids.

She appreciated the multi-disciplinary show “Our What Ifs Became Real Life” by Amber Buckanaga and James Harvin, on view through March 27.

She describes the “intimate moments” of the exhibit.

Kayla says: As you walk into the exhibit, you're basically walking through time and through the timelines of James and Amber's ancestors and even thinking into the future. There were components like poetry, textiles, fashion, design and painting.

There was a moment where they were talking about Amber's family history with boarding schools and relating that to James's family escaping slavery.

— Kayla Maria

Eli Effinger-Weintraub is really looking forward to seeing “Monsters Not Monoliths! A DnD Actual Play,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 6, rescheduled from the original January date due to the federal immigration enforcement surge.

Professional game master Manny Elliott will run a live table-top role-playing game with a group of experienced actors/gamers while the audience watches the story unfold.

The show will run approximately three hours and is recommended for ages 18 and older.

Eli says this show should be a blast for experienced and would-be gamers, improvisers and storytellers.

The story follows a group of ordinary people in a city a lot like Minneapolis, when mythical monsters and fairy tale creatures start showing up, the characters have to decide whether to fight the new arrivals or stand with them.

— Eli Effinger-Weintraub

Kristin Makholm has a bead on the arts community as a former art museum curator and director and now a nonprofit fundraiser in the Twin Cities.

She recommends visiting the grand opening this weekend of the Lowry Hill Gallery in Minneapolis. Located on Franklin Avenue near Hennepin, the Lowry Hill Gallery will feature Minnesota and regional artists working in a representational style.

Kristin describes the two artists with featured shows starting Saturday.

Kristin says: Charles Lyon is a Minneapolis artist who paints what he himself has seen and experienced. For example, he paints nature as it appears in the urban environment or the landscapes of the Boundary Waters as seen from a canoe.

The show he's opening this weekend is called “Round Here,” which features paintings of the greenery of our Midwest spring, summer and fall.

Kirsten Tradowsky’s paintings are based primarily on photographs, reimagined through her own vibrant lens of paint color and expressive brushwork. The series of paintings called “Annemarie's Vision” uses her grandma's photos of family gatherings as source material to create paintings.

— Kristin Makholm

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Kathy Kienzle is a retired principal harp of the Minnesota Orchestra. She’s looking forward to the upcoming Bakken Ensemble performance where the harp gets to shine. This season Bakken Ensemble celebrates 30 years. The performance is 4 p.m. Sunday, March 1, at Westminster Hall in Minneapolis.

Cheryl Losey Feder is the guest harpist, and Kienzle says this is a wonderful chance to hear her perform chamber music up-close, rather than with the full Minnesota Orchestra.

Kathy is particularly looking forward to hearing André Caplet’s “Conte Fantastique,” which she calls “extremely difficult and very, very fun to hear.”

Kathy says: One of the reasons I really love this piece is people think of the heart as a very beautiful, soothing, pretty instrument. And this piece really looks at the dark side of the harp.

It's based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe called “The Masque of the Red Death,” about a group of nobles who hole up in a castle and throw a masked ball while the populace dies of a plague, only to be killed off by a masked figure dressed as a plague victim.

— Kathy Kienzle

Brianna Regan is a former stage manager and ongoing arts fan in Minneapolis. She has seen both Theatre Elision’s current and previous productions of Grace McLean’s musical “In the Green,” and she liked it even better this time.

The musical is about the early years of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), a German Benedictine abbess, visionary, and composer whose writings spanned medical, natural history, philosophy, music and more.

The 90-minute musical focuses on a young Hildegard’s early years, when she entered the church after having visions. She is cloistered with an older nun, Jutta.

Brianna describes the show: It's a small, five-person cast that really deals with how to be a woman in the world, how to deal with using your voice, speaking up, being present and how to heal from trauma.

This time around, I really think it is even more relevant in our current political environment, as well as what we are dealing with here in Minnesota; it really hit me and gave me that kind of catharsis.

The artists in the show are just absolutely incredible. I cannot say enough good things about their musical talents. It is a little bit of a weird musical, but I will say, from start to finish, the story pulls you in.

— Brianna Regan

Stephen Gurney of Bemidji is a retired English professor with a self-described “indefatigable love of classical music.” He and his wife plan to make the drive to Nisswa to see the Lakes Area Music Festival perform Mozart and Borodin.

The concert is Sunday at the Lutheran Church of the Cross at 2 p.m. Saturday’s performance at Pillsbury Castle in Minneapolis is sold out. The program contains three pieces of chamber music by Mozart, Dvorak and Borodin.

Stephen offers some background on Borodin’s “String Quartet No. 2 in D Major”:

Stephen says: Borodin was one of the Russian five. These were five Russian composers who endeavored to express Russian folk music and even liturgical music in their in their works.

Borodin was by trade a chemist, and actually contributed a great deal to the advance of organic chemistry, but the Second String Quartet is a pure love song from beginning to end. It was dedicated to his wife. It was written and given to her on one of their anniversaries.

— Stephen Gurney

Art Hounds recommend “VocalEssence WITNESS: Symphony of Spirituals,” “Oasis Laugh-Battle” and “Salomé.”

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Matt Schneider describes himself as a dancer and dance floor builder for the underground scene of electronic music in the Twin Cities.

He’s looking forward to the Valentine’s Day artist reception of a photography exhibit by married couple Saoirse and Sarah Weiss. Their joint exhibit, entitled “Fíodóireacht Bheirte / A Weaving of Two,” runs through April 5 at the Northside Artspace Lofts Gallery in Minneapolis.

Matt describes Sarah’s work as daytime photographs involving portraits and family and Saoirse’s work as nighttime images that capture the DIY dance scene.

He says the artist reception on Saturday (6-9 p.m.) will be a family-friendly dance scene with live music and a DJ.

Matt says: She's one of the few people who is given the privilege to carry a camera in these spaces where anonymity and privacy are really respected.

— Matt Schneider

Scott Pollock, museum director at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, made a recent visit to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minn., where he enjoyed seeing Martha Bird’s woven baskets.

Her exhibit, “Fiber, Fragment and Form,” includes baskets displayed through the Spring Flower Show, on view now through March 15. Bird, who has a willow garden in southeast Minnesota, will give an artist talk on Sat. Feb. 21 from 1-2 p.m. called “Cultivating Willow: Building community through the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.”

Scott says most of Bird’s pieces are in the visitor center, though he advises stepping into the Arderson Horticultural Library to see Bird’s Japanese-inspired baskets with ikebana-style floral arrangements.

Scott says: What makes Martha's work really special is the level of detail that she goes into. As a basket maker, a willow harvester, she really looks at the functional approaches to form, but then she takes them into a sculptural level.

— Scott Pollock

Jennifer Olson of Golden Valley says she’s been visiting the American Swedish Institute since she was 5 years old. She’s looking forward to seeing the traveling exhibit “Nordic Echoes” when it opens on Saturday, Feb. 14.

The collection of contemporary Nordic folk arts includes works of textiles as well as work crafted from wood, metal, birchbark and more. A majority of the 24 artists represented are based in Minnesota, including Tia Keobounpheng, Sonja Peterson, Amber M. Jensen, Talon Cavender-Wilson, Pieper Bloomquist and Lucy and Gene Tokheim of Tokheim Stoneware.

The exhibit will be on view through June 7.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Renee Guittar is a Twin Cities dancer, actor, and choreographer. She’s performed in the past with Collide Theatrical Dance Company, and she’s looking forward to being in the audience to see their production of “Little Women.” The show runs Feb. 6–15 at the Luminary Arts Center in Minneapolis.

Renee says: I love seeing Collide’s shows, because the dancers are so impressive and athletic, and the shows are just jam-packed with storytelling that is accessible to all sorts of people, whether you've seen a dance show before or you haven't.

Yes, you're watching cool dance moves and lifts and turns and all that stuff, but there's a reason why the dancers are doing all those movements, and it's because of the story. And I always loved that as a dancer, but then also, since I've been an audience member, it's so fun to watch.

— Renee Guittar

Eric Heukeshoven is a composer and jazz musician in Winona, and he says it’s worth the trip to Rochester on a Wednesday night to catch the Rochester City Jazz Festival. Each Wednesday in February, a different jazz group will perform at Thesis Beer Project from 6–8 p.m.

Heukeshoven has this rundown: This coming Wednesday [Feb 11] is a relatively new group from Rochester called Snacklebox. I would call it sort of an instrumental funk band, something along the lines of Corey Wong or even Tower of Power. Really fun — almost all Rochester musicians or Rochester-area musicians.

And then on February 18, Zacc Harris, who's an amazing guitarist from the Twin Cities, is coming down. He's a composer and a band leader who's been on the Minneapolis scene for many years." He's performing as part of a trio.

And then rounding it out on the 25th is Winona's own Aaron Lohmeyer, and he's formed a trio with a pianist named Mark Whited and Rochester drummer named Alex Ortberg. Aaron has lived in different parts of the U.S., where he’s always been close to the Mississippi, and so his music reflects the various cultures [along the river.]

— Eric Heukeshoven

Charles “Corky” Reynolds works in the Historic Fournet Building in downtown Crookston, Minn., so he gets to see the art gallery on its second floor. That means, lately, he’s had a chance to appreciate Crookston artist Sarah Pester’s exhibit “Stardust & Soul: it’s in everything.”

The series of 41 watercolor, oil and mixed media paintings points both outward to the planets and inward, tying in Pester’s work as a yoga teacher and energy practitioner. The exhibit is on view through mid-April.

Corky says: You get overwhelmed in a sense that we're such a small part of the whole universe concept, and you kind of reflect and go, “You know, the situation we're in now, maybe that's just a little speck in the whole cosmos.”

— Charles “Corky” Reynolds