Friday, October 22, 2021
7:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Music & Storytelling
@ NYM Cultural Center
The Cultural Center is pleased to welcome Zeitgeist back to New York Mills for this unique and thrilling music and storytelling experience: Crocus Hill Ghost Story.
A collaboration between Zeitgeist, composer/flutist Julie Johnson, abd writer Cheri Johnson, Crocus Hill Ghost Story is a macabre tale of a house possessed, accompanied by a wildly evocative and colorful score performed live by Zeitgeist, Johnson, and KrisAnne Weiss, narrator.
Inspired by the author’s experiences living in a St. Paul mansion during the 1980s, the work explores the complex relationship between two longtime friends and the evolution of their relationship as they experience a haunting. Suitable for teenagers through adult. Crocus Hill Ghost Story is a concert-length production of roughly 60 minutes in length.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students (content suitable for teenagers and up). Please pay at the door. Show begins 7:30 p.m., doors open at 7:00. Light refreshments available. COVID safety guidelines observed. If you are not well, please stay home. We respectfully request unvaccinated visitors wear masks. Call 218-385-3339 with questions.
Flutist and composer Julie Johnson has a distinct sound and approach—rougher and more soulful than a typical classical sound, yet more pure than a typical jazz player’s— that she brings to many multi-genre projects, including places where, she’s been told, the flute doesn’t belong. As a creator and a performer of new music, Julie’s work walks the line between composition and songwriting, art music and popular music, between genres as seemingly different as classical and blues. A finalist for the McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians and a winner of grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the American Composers Forum, the Lanesboro Arts Center, Springboard for the Arts, MacPhail Center for Music, MRAC, and a Banff Centre residency, she plays
in many styles, working to bring both the flute and her audiences to music they haven’t been in contact with before.
Writer Cheri Johnson has received awards and fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the McKnight Foundation, the Bush Foundation, Yaddo, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her poetry, fiction, plays, and reviews have been included in magazines such as The Hollins Critic, The Rio Grande Review, Pleiades, Glimmer Train Stories, Puerto del Sol, Cerise Press, New South, Phantasmagoria, The Emprise Review, and Provincetown Arts. She has studied writing at Augsburg College, Hollins University, University of Minnesota, and as a part of the Loft Literary Center Mentor Series, and she has taught writing at the University of Minnesota, Augsburg College, the International Music Camp Summer
School of Fine Arts, and The Loft Literary Center, as well as through the SASE Wings program at Intermedia Arts.
Narrator KrisAnne Weiss, mezzo-soprano, has performed leading roles in many operas, including L’Italiana in Algeri, The Dangerous Liaisons, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Le Nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, Carmen, and Madama Butterfly. She has appeared with the Pine Mountain Music Festival, Fargo Moorhead Opera, Opera Omaha, and Minnesota Opera. She has performed with Valley Chamber Chorale, St. Catherine Choral Society, the Bakken Trio, Mississippi Valley Orchestra, Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee, Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra, Nautilus Music-Theater, and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, among others. An advocate of contemporary music, Ms. Weiss has premiered a number of works, among them John Tartaglia’s orchestral work Dark Night, Glad Day, Edie Hill’s Amy Lowell: A Rare Pattern, and the lead role in Chris Gable’s opera The Ladysmith Story.
Lauded for providing “a once-in-a-lifetime experience for adventurous concertgoers,” Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and woodwinds. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in the Twin Cities and on tour. Always eager to explore new artistic frontiers, Zeitgeist collaborates with poets, choreographers, directors, visual artists and sound artists of all types to create imaginative new work that challenges the boundaries of traditional chamber music. Up to date information about the ensemble and its activities can be found at zeitgeistnewmusic.org.
