WoodPicks to close out
Staples Music in the Park series
STAPLES - The WoodPicks will present the final concert in the Staples Music in the Park series at 7 p.m. Sunday in the Northern Pacific Park in Staples. In case of rain, the concerts will be moved to Centennial Auditorium.
The acoustic mix of the WoodPicks includes gospel, bluegrass, country and Americana music, with their own arrangements of original music and old favorites. The group is relatively new. They formed in member JD Kezar’s music store in Thief River Falls in 2005 and quickly expanded to many northern Minnesota venues.
One of their original arrangements, “Barn Again!” was included in a collection of rural Americana for the Smithsonian Institute and they’re currently featured in a Prairie Public TV program titled “Prairie Musicians.”
Members of the WoodPicks include Greg Dally, mandolin; Dustin Keller on bass fiddle; Gene Lunsetter, guitar; Milo Ballingrud, banjo; and J.D. Kezar, fiddle, harmonica, jaw harp and guitar.
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The Music in the Park Series is funded by the Staples Host Lions Club. The Series is organized by the Staples Motley Area Arts Council, with the assistance of the Staples Motley Public Schools and the City of Staples.
Music Festival finale to celebrate America
The final concert in the Lakes Area Music Festival is titled “Songs of the New World,” and it will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at Tornstrom Auditorium in Brainerd.
The concert is free, but donations to help support the festival are encouraged.
The most ambitious work to be performed at the concert will be Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” An orchestra of 50 musicians will perform the piece, the largest ensemble in the four-year history of the festival. In his program notes, John Windh says, “Clearly, with the ‘New World’ we’ve left chamber music behind and are on a daring excursion to the very heart of big-orchestra Romanticism.” The symphony was inspired by the time Dvorak spent in the United States, including a summer in the Czech-American community of Spillville, Iowa.
Also on the program will be five Old American Songs by Copland sung by baritone John Taylor Ward of Yale University. Ward is also the festival’s assistant music director. Barber’s Violin Concerto also will be performed. The violin soloist will be Jonathan Magness of the Minnesota Orchestra. The concert will be conducted by Sarah Hicks, the Minnesota Orchestra’s Conductor of Pops and Presentations.
The Lakes Area Music Festival was established in 2009. For more information, visit www.lakesareamusic.org .
Cuba presentation to be heard Sept. 6
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The fall series of Cultural Thursday at Central Lakes College (CLC) in Brainerd will commence with two presentations on Cuba by CLC sociologist Gary Payne on Sept. 6 in room E354 (lecture lab). The first presentation starts at noon and the longer presentation will be held at 7 p.m.
Payne has made three trips to Cuba, accompanied twice by his son Sayer in 1997 and in 2005. Cameras in hand, they traveled on foot, by taxi and in rented cars around the island but spent most of their time in Havana, staying with Cuban families.
Payne will cover the turbulent history of this nation, U.S. involvement in Cuban affairs, the nature of Cuba’s unique brand of socialism and the culture that sprang from it.
The presentations are free and seats are limited; early arrival is suggested for seating.
Last show set Aug. 25 for Action Entertainment
Action Entertainment, that has helped raise money for Brainerd Area Sertoma’s Winter Wonderland, will culminate their summer season with an event Aug. 25 at Houston Ford in Pine River.
The event begins at 11 a.m. and will includes stage coach rides, a belly dancing show and free brat and pop from 12-2 p.m. “Out West” will be performed, including the appearance of Buddy the Trick Horse at 3 p.m.
Doug Taylor, who created Action Entertainment and has a Hollywood connection, returned to Brainerd with experience as a stunt man and a horse wrangler for the movies and is currently acting in and directing most of their productions. Action Entertainment has produced more than 12 professional shows and publishes a souvenir newspaper called “Our Neck of the Woods.”
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Hagberg directs YouTube video
Jay’d Hagberg directed TRAILER II: A deaf musical that can be seen on YouTube.
Hagberg, who resides in the Twin Cities area, started out at Crosby High School, then went to Brainerd High School and then finished up at the St. Paul Conservatory for performing artists. He graduated in 2009.
According to YouTube, the musical is how silence examines the gap between hearing and deaf cultures, and what happens when things like shared interest, romance and tragedy bridge that gap. The story follows Abby (Canae Weiss, local deaf dancer and actress) in her struggles as a deaf pre-professional dancer. When she meets the hearing musician Mark, (Robert Korsmo, local actor/singer with Stone Arch Armada) perceptions of the gap between the hearing and the deaf cultures shift and a romance ensues. Through a smorgasbord of song, dance and American Sign Language, the story unfolds and lives are changed.
Mixed media artists create
‘World of Wonder’
AITKIN - Through paintings, collage, dolls, toys and mixed media constructions, artists David Norstad and Tracy McMan welcome viewers to their “World of Wonder” at Ripple River Gallery. The Bay Lake area gallery will feature their work through Sept. 9, with an opening reception held from 2-4 p.m. Saturday.
Both McMan and Norstad work with fabric, paper, wood, yarn, beads and other varied media. Color, imagination and a sense of play link the work of the two artists.
As a student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Twin Cities McMan experimented with painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and print making, but an interest in handmade books opened the door to doll and toy making.
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“The books I made had fabric elements, embroidery and little stuffed characters that fit in paper pockets, so a progression to dolls seemed natural,” McMan said. “I have always had a fondness for dolls-first playing with and then collecting them, so I’m amazed it took me so long to figure out I could make them as well.”
Norstad, a prolific painter, fiber and collage artist, lives in the Detroit Lakes area. “World of Wonder,” the seventh exhibit of his work will include stitched and quilted fabric collages that depict family and friends, colorful paintings of imaginary animals and elaborate mixed-media color field collages.
A graduate of North Dakota State University with a degree in humanities and social science, Norstad, a full-time artist since 1981, has earned awards at numerous regional, national and international juried art shows.
The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays.
For more information call (218) 678-2575,e-mail ripriv@mlecmn.net or
Diane Saumer and
Friends to perform
Diane Sumer and Friends will perform at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16, in the bandstand at Gregory Park as part of the Concerts in the Park summer series. Diane Saumer and Friends have performed throughout the area for many years. Saumer, sings for her band. She began performing onstage with her dad at the age of 3. She performed in the Twin Cities for many years and moved up the road to the lakes area. Diane Saumer and Friends was formed in 1990; drawing on the talented musicians who live in the Brainerd area. Her husband, Bob Guidi, plays tenor saxophone in the band. He has performed with local musicians Kenny Jake, Jay Brutsman and Don Merritt.
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Participants may bring a lawn chair or blanket to the concert.
Performances in the park are a collaboration between the Brainerd Parks and Recreation Department and the Lakes Area Senior Activity Center in Brainerd.
Hockey association to
present Hairball in concert
BREEZY POINT - Northern Lakes Lightning Youth Hockey Association will present Hairball in an outdoor concert on Sept. 1 outside the Breezy Point Ice Arena.
Gates open at 5 p.m., with the opening band at 6:30 p.m. and Hairball will take the stage at 8 p.m. Ticket are $20 in advance or $25 at the door.
Tickets can be purchased at Cub Foods in Brainerd and Baxter, the Brainerd Dispatch; Barstock Liquor in Crosby and Crosslake; Maucieri’s Italian Bistro in Crosby; C&C Boatworks in Crosslake; Paulbeck’s County Market and Hyytinen Hardware Hank in Aitkin; Billy’s and Pelican Square in Breezy Point; and Pequot Lakes SuperValu, Fun Sisters, Wild Hair, Pestello’s, Salon Couture and the Pequot Lakes Chamber of Commerce in Pequot Lakes.
For more information go to northernlakeslightning.com.
Proceeds from this event will support the Northern Lakes Lightning Youth Hockey Association.
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Taylor to present
last organ series concert
NISSWA - Cathy Taylor will present the last concert in the Lakes Area Summer Organ Series at noon Wednesday at Lutheran Church of the Cross in Nisswa.
Pieces Taylor will perform are “Variations on Lasst uns erfreuen” by Janet Linker, a Baroque set, and “Suite Gothique” by Léon Boëllmann. This concert will honor Harriet Piehl for creating the organ recital series in 2003.
A free-will offering will be taken to be used by the Music Ministry of Lutheran Church of the Cross.
Johnny Cash Tribute concerts scheduled
BREEZY POINT - Nashville recording artist Doug Allen will perform two free Johnny Cash Tribute concerts scheduled Sunday and Aug. 26 at the Dockside at Breezy Point Resort.
The concerts begin at 7:45 p.m. Participants can bring lawn chairs.
The concerts will include Cash’s classic songs and his later works and the characters of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash are portrayed by international performers Allen and Nicole Evans in the multimedia theatrical show.
Turtle Town to host mystery writer
NISSWA - Turtle Town Books and Gifts of Nisswa will hold a book signing with William Kent Krueger, an award winning mystery writer, from 10-11:30 a.m. Aug. 25. Krueger will be signing his latest book, “Trickster’s Point,” to be released Tuesday.
Krueger is best known for his mystery series set on the Iron Range in Minnesota. Cork O’Connor stars in this series as the former sheriff of Tamarack County. This mystery begins with O’Connor sitting in the shadow of a towering monolith known as Trickster’s Point, deep in the Minnesota wilderness. Beside him is the first Native American governor-elect, Jubal Little, who is slowly dying with an arrow through his heart. Although the men have been bow hunting, this is no accident. The arrow in the governor’s heart belongs to Cork.
When he becomes the primary suspect in the murder, Cork understands full well that he’s been set up. As he works to clear his name and track the real killer, he recalls his long, complex relationship with Jubal, the Native kid who aspired to be a populist politician and grew to become a cunning man capable of treachery and murder. As Cork looks deeply into his own past, he comes face to face with the many motives, good and ill, that lead men and women into the difficult, sometimes deadly, political arena.
To ensure you can get a copy of Krueger’s book before the event call Turtle Town at 963-4891 and reserve your copy no later than Tuesday.
