Location for events is the NYM Cultural Center at 24 North Main Ave. unless otherwise noted. Call 218-385-3339 for information about events. Office hours: 10:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday-Friday and !0:00am to 3:00pm Saturday,

The new Cultural Center blog
www.nymillsculturalcenter.blogspot.com

Friday, May 2nd 7:30 pm. Bill Miller singer-songwriter and Indian flute musician.

Over the past three years, singer/songwriter Bill Miller has produced two amazing projects, SPIRIT RAIN and CEDAR DREAM SONGS that exemplify his artistry by blending the Native American and western folk/blues traditions in something wholly new. These are works of a man who knows first-hand life's keenest joys and sorrows, a man who distills experience into a potent musical style.

CEDAR DREAM SONGS brought Bill great recognition by winning 2005's Grammy Award for Best Native American Recording. This instrumental CD contains nine beautiful songs which, as the subtitle suggests, are perfect examples of ‘Musical Portraits on the Native American flute.'

A Mohican Indian from northern Wisconsin, Bill Miller has long been one of the most admired figures in the Native American music arena and beyond. As an award-winning recording artist, performer, songwriter, activist, and painter, he's been a voice for the voiceless, a link between two great and clashing civilizations. On SPIRIT RAIN, he walks the path of reconciliation in a set of fourteen heartfelt songs and evocative instrumentals.

Tickets $12 advance sale, $15 evening of concert. $2 discount for members.

Sunday, May 4th 6:00pm-8:00pm. Annual Garden Party fundraiser. Music provided by Erik Keranen, with wine, treats, other beverages, and good conversation. A silent auction of plants and other spring goods is a part of the fun as well.

Friday, May 9th at 7:30pm. Bill Holm, Minnesota-based poet, non-fiction writer, and piano player will be at the Cultural Center to regale us with his stories of life on the prairie, in Iceland, and in the woods. He has also told us that he will play the piano a bit.

Bill will sign books, including his new Cabins of Minnesota (photographs by Doug Ohman),The Windows of Brimnes: an American in Iceland, The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth (stories of small town life), and Playing the Black Piano, a new collection of poems.

Free admission to hear this wonderful voice of the Minnesota prairie.

"The tallest radical humorist in the Midwest and a truthful and graceful writer.” —Garrison Keillor

"Bill Holm’s is a classic American voice, but of a kind we haven’t often heard lately. It’s the voice of the prairie radical, the village agnostic, toting volumes of Walt Whitman. . . as he saunters through Minneota, Minnesota.” —Los Angeles Times

Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 pm. Ellis Paul. "A singer songwriter is only as good as the times he reflects. In times like these, when so many nuts are running the show, it's comforting to know that Ellis Paul is actually holding our sanity on his own stage! Wise, tender, brilliant and biting, Ellis is one of our best human compasses, marking in melodies and poems where we've been and where we might go if we so choose to. Personally Ellis, I'm goin' where you're goin'!" --Nora Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's daughter)

Ellis Paul is one of the leading voices in American songwriting. He was a principle leader in the wave of singer/songwriters that emerged from the Boston folk scene, creating a movement that revitalized the national acoustic circuit with an urban, literate, folk pop style that helped renew interest in the genre in the 1990's.

. . . Paul remains the most mainstream-friendly folk songwriter to emerge from Boston since Tom Rush. Between 1993 and 2004, he won an unprecedented 13 Boston Music Awards, and his songs were heard on hit TV shows Ed and MTV's Real World; and in the soundtracks of several Farrelly Brothers films, including "Me, Myself, & Irene," starring Jim Carrey, and "Shallow Hal," with Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow. Director Peter Farrelly has called Paul "a national treasure."

Tickets $12 general admission and $10 members.

Saturday, June 7th at 7:30pm. Norah Rendell and Brian Miller. Norah Rendell sings and plays Irish flute and whistle “with a degree of style and sensitivity envied by many” says Tim Carroll of FolkWords. In Canada, Norah has performed live on the CBC and at the Mission Folk Festival, the Rogue Folk Club and venues throughout British Columbia and Alberta as a founding member of Canadian roots band Cleia. In 2005, Norah was awarded a grant from the Canada Council for Performing Arts to study traditional flute and singing in Ireland. She kept busy, earning an MA in Irish traditional music from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in between island hopping excursions to such venues as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Sidmouth Folk Festival with the UK/Ireland-based band The Outside Track. Since relocating to Minneapolis, Norah has joined the ultratraditional Doon Ceili Band led by County Offaly’s Paddy O’Brien.

Esteemed Irish music critic Earle Hitchner writes that “the backing of [Brian] Miller on guitar flexes not just muscle but a fully complementary style.” Also an accomplished singer and flute player, Miller began playing Irish music as a high-schooler in Bemidji, Minnesota. He has been a highly visible character in the Twin Cities Irish music scene since 1998, while often sneaking away to his other adopted home of Cork, Ireland. As a member of a number of groups and duos including The Tommie Cunniffe Trio, Gan Bua, The Doon Ceili Band, 5 Mile Chase and Laura and the Lads, Miller has performed throughout the US, Canada and Ireland. In Ireland he has been featured on TG4, RTE television and RTE radio. The Irish Times called his guitar accompaniment on Tommie Cunniffe’s 2007 solo album “superb”.

Tickets $12 general admission, $10 members.

Great American Think-Off 2008

Saturday, June 14th. Great American Think-Off live debate among the 4 finalists. The finalists will debate this year's question: "Does Immigration Strengthen or Threaten the United States." A prade down mainstreet, New York Mills will preceed the debate which will be held at the James W. Mann Center for the PerformingArts at the New York Mills school.

Tickets to the debate are $12 general admission or $10 in advance.

Kevin Locke's concert is being rescheduled for later in 2008. Kevin Locke, Lakota Hoop Dancer, Indian flute player, and storyteller at the Cultural Center. Kevin Locke (Tokeya Inajin is his Lakota name, meaning "The First to Arise") is known throughout the world as a visionary Hoop Dancer, the preeminent player of the indigenous Northern Plains flute, a traditional storyteller, cultural ambassador, recording artist and educator.

Kevin is Lakota (Hunkpapa Band of Lakota Sioux) and Anishinabe. It was from his mother, Patricia Locke (1991 MacArthur Foundation Grant winner), his uncle Abraham End-of-Horn, mentor Joe Rock Boy, and many other elders and relatives that Kevin received training in the values, traditions and language of his native culture for which he works tirelessly. While his early instructions were received from his immediate family and community, from his extending family in every part of the world Kevin has learned many lessons in global citizenship and how we each can draw from our individual heritages to create a vibrant, evolving global civilization embracing and celebrating our collective heritage.

Check out the pre-concert dinners at the Mills Creamery in New York Mills (218-385-5282).

Cultivating the Arts in Rural America

NYMRCC Mission Statement:
"The NYMRCC is dedicated to expanding the cultural and creative opportunities of rural Americans by offering innovative, quality arts programming, and demonstrating how the arts can be used as an economic development tool in rural communities across the nation."

The Cultural Center's signature event is the annual philosophy contest, the Great American Think-Off. This year's Think-Off will be June 14th and features a debate on the question "Does immigration strengthen or threaten the United States?" Click here to visit the Great American Think-Off web site.

Recent Events

In the Gallery

hours
Tuesday-Friday 10:00am-5:00pm; Saturday 10:00am to 3:00pm

Main gallery
Minnesota State High School League Art Show Tuesday, 22 throiugh Wednesday April 30. Arts Festival 9:30am-2:30pm April 30. Arts workshops all day.

Upstairs Gallery
Exhibit of Somali weaving through the end of May.

Classes and other events

Artists Forum
This month's forum is Wednesday, May 14 7:00pm at the Detroit Lakes Public Library. All local and regional artists are invited to share their work and ideas and inspiration with other artists.

Dance for Kids
Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon with Carrie Ann Pollard

Ballroom dance for grownups
Second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 7:00pm

Guitar lessons
Tuesday afternoons with Chris Frost

Light & Easy Yoga
Tuesdays 9:00am-10:00am

Beginners to Extreme Yoga
Wednesdays 5:15pm to 6:00pm

Knitting for Everyone
Every 2nd and 4th Monday with Pam Robinson and others. 6:00pm to 8:00pm

1000 Lakes Writers' Group
1st and 3rd Thursdays 7:00 pm