“The first official performance in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series was by Laurie Anderson in November 2012,” writes Britt Robson in Saturday’s (10/14) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “Liquid Music will kick off its sixth season Saturday with a world premiere co-commissioned with the Walker Art Center and New York’s Jazz Gallery. An electroacoustic ensemble will perform ‘Breaking English’ by composer Rafiq Bhatia [of] the eclectic New York band Son Lux. Accompanying the music will be a multimedia experience … Liquid Music’s 2017-18 schedule … boasts big names engaging in unusual collaborations—indie-folk musician Bon Iver with St. Paul’s TU Dance, jazz pianist Vijay Iyer with writer/photographer Teju Cole.’ … As Liquid Music curator Kate Nordstrum put it, … ‘we’ve hit a sweet spot.’ … With an operating budget of less than $300,000 last season, Liquid Music welcomed 5,300 concertgoers … eighty percent of [whom] had no prior experience with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.” Jon Limbacher, the SPCO’s managing director and president, says that initially he was “uncertain about taking the leap into presenting artists other than SPCO musicians. But Kate’s vision of broadening our presence and her passion for contemporary chamber music convinced me.”
Posted October 20, 2017
Pictured: Ashwini Ramaswamy, a principal dancer with Minneapolis-based Ragamala Dance Company. She and DJ Jace Clayton will document their creative progress at the SPCO’s blog this season as they prepare to perform in the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s “Liquid Music” series in 2019.
