Month: February 2005

Not every cyclist on Nicollet Mall is a kamikaze messenger. Look, there’s Minnesota Orchestra principal flutist Adam Kuenzel, zipping between buses, flute strapped to his back! Kuenzel bikes to work in fair weather and foul, and even waved off the official tour bus during the orchestra’s 2003 centennial tour of Minnesota, choosing instead to follow on his bike. With his movie-star gaze and technical virtuosity, Kuenzel has become a popular figure with audiences here and on the road. For those fools who dismiss the flute as the instrument of choice for preteen girls, just listen to challenging works like the Nielsen Flute Concerto, which Kuenzel blows apart like a wily March wind moving through an ice-coated pine. And then look at how this flutist spends his free time: cross-country skiing, kayaking, living life with true muscle. It takes a lot of lung power to play a wind instrument, even the lithe and silvery flute. So really, all that biking is just part of his practice routine. With his penchant for adventure, we thought Kuenzel would do pretty well stranded on a desert island.

1. My flute so I can practice, in case someday I’m rescued and I want my job back. If I give up hope, I could use it as a tent pole.

2. My recordings of Cecilia Bartoli. I’m sure I could rig up a primitive CD player from material found on the island, a la the professor on Gilligan’s Island. Listening to her would give me the illusion of having female companionship.

3. My book of Robert Service poems. This is poetry for men, about men, clinging to life in the Yukon. I’d be reminded that I’m not in such a bad situation after all.

4. I’d like to continue to receive the Atlantic Monthly, to stay abreast of world events and give me something fresh to read while I sway among the palms in my hammock.

5. Last of all, I’d have a voice-activated tape recorder small enough to hang from a string around my neck. I’d end up talking to myself a lot, and would want to review occasionally to see if I’d had any brilliant thoughts.

During this month’s Twin Cities Mozart Marathon, Kuenzel helps the Minnesota Orchestra recreate a Vienna Akademie concert from 1783. 612-371-5656; www.minnesotaorchestra.org

Here or there? That’s the eternal conundrum of the immigrant, and it’s conveyed in a number of ways in this exhibit of young Arab-American artists. There–be it Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Morocco, or Jordan–has beauty, tradition, and the resounding rightness of home. Here, in the United States, offers religious and creative freedom, for men and women. “My work questions what is unjust in my tradition,” says Saudi Arabian artist Hend Al-Mansour, whose hennaed cloth panels hang from the ceiling to create a private room within the gallery. In photographs of mosques and children, paintings of faceless draped women, and calligraphic figures from the Qur’an, homesickness collides with criticism. The most emphatic piece here is Jumana Al Hashal’s silkscreen of a plane dropping bombs labeled “WMD” onto the map of Iraq. 4137 Bloomington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-728-5728

A crank and a recluse, a seeker and an obsessive, Biederman was the kind of artist who made art simply because he couldn’t not do it! He was from a whole different era than the graduates turned out by today’s BFA and MFA programs, but he might as well have been a whole different species. As a quintessential modernist, Biederman was forward-looking, using fluorescent tubes in his work in 1940, decades before Dan Flavin (whose work is currently sought after by the kind of art-world “phonies and hypocrites” that Biederman loved to hate), but he also reached back. In a sense he was our last long link with early moderns like Cezanne, his first love. Don’t pass up the opportunity to rediscover a true American original. As Biederman himself proved, a restless eye does not go unrewarded. 333 E. River Rd., Minneapolis; 612-625-9494; www.weisman.umn.edu

Mail doubles as works of art (postcard, painting, sculpture), in this exhibition. Each artwork, while it is stamped and addressed to the gallery, and bears a postmark tattoo, seems to have very little road wear. Sure, it would be pretty hard to damage the block of wood carved ironically to resemble a package, but it’s clear that the cork collage and the soft doll, who floated unprotected through the system wearing her address label like a piece of jewelry, got kid-glove treatment. Which is maybe not so surprising–wouldn’t doll-mail be a bright spot in the otherwise monotonous day of a postal worker? 1111 Mainstreet, Hopkins; 952-979-1100; www.hopkinsmn.com/_hca

B.B. King is coming to town, and the man is turning eighty this year, so don’t put off today what you might not be able to hear tomorrow. Not that the reigning King of the Blues is slowing down any. With a world tour and a new album (The Ultimate Collection, twenty-one of King’s greatest hits, is available March 15), the man is in fine form, and sounds as good as ever. His music really should be heard in a venue that serves some good fried food (seats that spin are ideal, too), but King has earned a measure of comfort after so many decades of hard work, and his smoky, low-down voice should rumble the cubes at Orchestra Hall just fine. 612-371-5656; www.minnesotaorchestra.org

Not every folksinger offers paeans to cornfields and chicken coops. Lucy Kaplansky is a purely urban soul, and her New York City songs tell stories with subway trains below and skyscrapers above. Nor do her curly hair, modern love songs, and psychology degree fit with your average folkie image, but she cuts to the heart of things with a sweet and yearning voice. Her latest recording, The Red Thread, crosses oceans to China, where Kaplansky and her husband recently traveled to adopt a baby daughter. The title refers to an invisible thread, which, according to Chinese lore, links newborn babies to every person they will meet throughout their lives. It’s a good reminder of the fragile connectivity of life, which in itself is a key to happy urban living. 416 Cedar Ave S., Minneapolis; 612-338-2674; www.thecedar.org

Al Green’s been boiling in our blood all along, his deep moans and hungry wails laying down soundtracks for everything from lost virginities to Viagra-assisted hook-ups. After that period in the eighties when Green went reverend on us, devoting himself full-time to gospel and God, he returned to R&B in the mid-nineties, but it was a disappointingly lackluster effort. Luckily, in 2003 he came full circle with I Can’t Stop, an album on which he reunites with his old producer, Willie Mitchell, and reconciles his Christian beliefs with the corporeal pleasures his music magically incites. Indeed, he really couldn’t stop, because his new album follows the same earthy path. It’s a raw effort peppered with spiritual energy and Green’s signature Southern soul. Everything’s OK loves all God’s creatures–especially honeys, babies, and mamas.

It’s been ten years since the folks at the Schubert Club brought Minnesota its first gamelan, and in collaboration with the Indonesian Performing Arts Association of Minnesota, they’ve put it to good use ever since. For this concert, Midiyanto, an acclaimed Javanese puppeteer, will shape an evening wayang kulit, or traditional shadow puppetry performance, around the music. The puppet master gathers concertgoers around the fire (Okay, they’ll make do with giant gongs, in this case) to tell the story of the young Bima, a traditional character who sports a conspicuously long thumbnail. The multitasking Midiyanto will guide Bima through the Mahabharata world of demons, giants, and gods, even as he conducts the gamelan players through their mesmerizing sweeps of percussion. Sundin Hall, 1531 Hewitt Ave., St. Paul; 651-523-2459; www.schubert.org

Those darling DJs at the Current have been playing Nick Cave’s profane-to-profound music with such enthusiasm you’d think we’re in Australia, where he’s achieved elder statesman status among alt rockers. Hearing the dark-side crooner so often reminds us of what we like about him–his brooding intensity, his amazing gift for melody, his throwback lyrical style–but we concede that even fans may find this three-CD, fifty-six-song set a lot to digest. It spans a couple of decades and a huge range of styles, meaning listeners might use their “skip” button a wee bit to keep things interesting or to spare themselves abrasions from Cave’s rougher edges. But don’t be too quick to jump ahead: Cave always rewards brave listeners with shining moments of brilliance.