Live Music + Arts Learning
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Guitar Improv Workshop @ 1PM
Concert @ 7:30PM
The New York Mills Regional Cultural Center’s 2023 Fall Concert Series continues on Saturday, September 30 with a concert by Ben Ranson at 7:30 p.m. in the Cultural Center’s intimate visual arts gallery space. All are welcome!
Ben will also offer a Guitar Improv Workshop preceding the concert, at 1:00 p.m. Details and registration link below.
Ben Ranson is a nylon-string, finger-style guitarist and humorous singer-songwriter from Sebeka, Minnesota. His songs are distinguished by their irreverent attitude, realism, and rural mid-western subject matter such as potato inspectors, love, taxidermists, garbage men, grasshoppers, local rodeo accidents, and the cuisine of the town of Barnesville, MN. His rhyme and wordplay make the imagery in his songs vivid, lifelike, and funny.
Although he was born in a pickup on the side of the road, Ben was always the guy in the band whose job it was to listen to the recording and teach the song to everyone else. Since graduating from Berklee, where he studied performance and composition, he has performed in bars, coffee shops, churches, and art centers in various rock, blues, and folk groups, taught lessons, and engineered recordings for other local artists.
Ben’s dynamic, polyphonic guitar work features jazzy chords, counterpoint, and unusual combinations of textures. You can hear chicken pickin’, blues, and hints of jazz and flamenco in Ben’s music. He is notable for combining ironic, quirky songs with sophisticated guitar arrangements featuring extended solo improvisation.
Adult tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door (members get a $2 discount); students $5. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and the concert begins at 7:30. Cash bar and light refreshments will be available.
Get Ben Ranson Concert Tickets! >
In 2022, Ben recorded a concert in the Cultural Center gallery. Check out an excerpt of that show here:
Before the concert, learn hands-on guitar improvisation with Ben Ranson!
This workshop is on unaccompanied improvisation for the guitar. It is a hands-on workshop. The basic idea is to learn how to make up music, on the spot, all by yourself, that sounds beautiful. Participants must bring an acoustic guitar.
Skill Level: To be able to do this workshop, you need to know how to play an open E chord, and an open D chord.
Techniques Covered: drone strings, arpeggios, call and response, simple chord-melody, and pedal point. Each technique is simple enough to be done by a beginner, but can also be done by advanced players.
Maximum of 20 participants. Cost $15 per person. Must bring your own guitar.
Register for Guitar Improv Workshop HERE >
We hope to see you on Septemeber 30th! Call the Cultural Center at 218-385-3339 with any questions.
