About the Artists:
Zeitgeist Halloween Festival 2019
![]() Laura Packer has been telling stories her whole life – her mother reports she was born talking. The daughter of a children’s librarian and a writer, it seems inevitable that she become a storyteller and writer herself, since her childhood was steeped in narrative. By second grade, Laura was telling stories to her classmates, creating her own magazines and writing letters to the editor of her hometown newspaper; her deep love of fairytales and mythology eventually led her to obtain a degree in Folklore and Mythology from Boston University. Imagine her surprise when she discovered, upon graduating, that there isn’t a crying need for folklorists!
Undaunted by the lack of job openings for folklorists, Laura has built a career helping people and organizations find their own story, performing original and traditional tales around the world, and creating written narrative that draws the reader into new possibilities. ![]() Queen Drea Voice-Loops N Effects (°1969, Chicago, United States) creates conceptual soundscapes. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language to her lyrics and compositions, she tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way and likes to involve the audience in conversation as they accompany her on her musical journey. Her performances directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context. With a conceptual approach, her works references love, pain, the feeling of not being “enough as a form of resistance against the logic of the “Normalcy” box people try to put her in.
Her works demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of putting limits on one’s self in favor of fulfilling someone else’s expectations. Sometimes her poems and lyrics challenge the binaries we continually reconstruct between self and other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. Queen Drea wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that balance on the edge of recognition and alienation. Queen Drea’s compositions appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. By referencing romanticism, dark humor and symbolism, she creates work through labor-intensive processes which can be seen explicitly as a personal exorcism ritual. Queen Drea Voice-Loops N Effects currently lives, works and plays in the Twin Cities. Ghost Story of Yotsuya by Asuka Kakitani is inspired by the famous tale Yotsuya Kaidan, perhaps the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time. This new work was commissioned for the 2019 Zeitgeist Halloween Festival and was developed during the 2019 Zeitgeist-Composer Workshop.
![]() “A musical impressionist and supreme colorist” (Hot House Magazine) aptly characterizes the Japanese-born composer Asuka Kakitani. Her deep love for nature and animals inspires Kakitani to transform her imagination into epic musical stories that DownBeat Magazine described as brimming with “sumptuous positivity and organic flow.”
She is the founder of the 18-piece ensemble the Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra, and their first recording Bloom has been featured on the international radio program PRI’s The World, acknowledged as one of the best debut albums of the year by DownBeat Magazine Critics’ Poll and NPR Music Jazz Critics’ Poll, and All About Jazz called it “absolutely superb.” After she relocated to Minnesota from Brooklyn, NY in 2016, she co-founded the Twin Cities Jazz Composers’ Workshop, which aims to foster creative and forward-looking composition for the modern jazz orchestra in the Twin Cities area. Kakitani also co-founded and conducts Inatnas Orchestra with her husband, composer/trombonist JC Sanford, that features both of their music and some of the best jazz musicians in the twin cities area. Kakitani has been the recipient of grants and awards including the BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize, the Manny Albam Commission, the Jerome Fund for New Music from the American Composers Forum, Brooklyn Arts Council, two Composer Assistance Grants from the American Music Center, and recently was awarded a 2019 McKnight Composer Fellowship. Conjuring, by choreographer Maggie Bergeron and composer Nick Gaudette, is an improvisatory ritual for dancers and musicians. This new work was commissioned for the 2019 Zeitgeist Halloween Festival and was developed during the 2019 Zeitgeist-Composer Workshop.
![]() Born and raised in the twin cities, Nick Gaudette is a local bass player, educator, and creator of musical arts whenever possible. He is a trained classical player, a seasoned jazz player, and a contemporary composer and player for the upright bass. Upon finishing his studies in Cleveland OH, Nick came back to the Twin Cities and helped found the hybrid chamber-fiddle group, the Orange Mighty Trio. He is also a co-creator of the Cherry Spoon Collective which is a multi-generational group of composer/ musicians who read and perform each other’s work. Nick is also a frequent collaborator with the Maggie Bergeron Dance Company. Together, Nick and Maggie curate their own live music and dance festival called Hear, Here! which pairs and premiers new works by composer/musician & choreographer/dancer combos. Nick is also a full time instructor at Edina High School where he directs the advanced orchestras for grades 10-12. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as a Master of Arts in Teaching from Mankato State University. He is a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative recipient, a Cedar Commission Artist, an EdFund grant recipient, outdoors person, motorcyclist, and dad.
![]() Maggie Bergeron is an organizer, choreographer, dancer, teacher, and writer. She is a Lecturer in the U of MN Dance Program, dances on occasion with the collective Wailing Babies, makes collaborative work for all sorts of performance occasions, and produces and curates a music/movement festival called Hear Here! along with her composer husband Nicholas Gaudette. Maggie is committed to engaging the process of collaboration in her work, and is more interested in a holistic imagining of a performance experience. Her work has been seen locally at the Southern Theater, Red Eye Theater, Walker Art Center and Bryant Lake Bowl. Maggie graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy and holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota. She is a Licensed K-12 Dance Instructor and holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching.
![]() Megan Ihnen & Alan Theisen present… is a curatorial team dedicated to creating memorable audience experiences through multiform collaborative practices and vivaciousness. The voice/saxophone programs produced through their partnership have been lauded as “a fresh look at what it means to be artists in the 21st century.” Both members bring a wide array of skill sets to their duo — Ihnen is a mezzo-soprano force of nature (equally comfortable singing Brahms, musical theater, or George Crumb) with knowledge about placemaking, arts administration, and marketing while Theisen is an active composer of concert music and jazz in addition to his careers as performer and music theorist.
Their first show, This World of Yes, has been performed across the United States including appearances in Kansas City, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore. Interweaving compositions by Jessica Rudman, Michael E. Young, Nick Zoulek, Anna Brake, John Cage, and Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, this debut program is a rhapsodic and often tender exploration of pathways, choices, and duality. The fusion of stylistically varied contemporary music and audience participation contained within This World of Yes has made it a hit with concertgoers. Megan Ihnen & Alan Theisen present… is debuting and performing their second touring production, Black Meridian, during the 2019-2020 season. A theatrical recital of new music for voice, saxophone, and electronics, Black Meridian takes as its central theme the distortion of space and time around the presence of black holes; a metaphor is drawn between this astonishing cosmic phenomenon and the inevitable tragedy of relationships marred by miscommunication and disastrous personal choices. ![]() Finding joy in variety, Liz Pearse is a musician of many pursuits. Liz began her exploration of the endless possibilities of the voice after a childhood spent playing any instrument she could lay hands upon. As a performer, her uniquely colorful and versatile voice has led to performances of wide-ranging works from medieval to modern, and though she is known as a specialist in contemporary vocal repertoire, she also deeply enjoys a well-aged song. Liz has recently begun a long-term project commissioning and performing works for singer at the piano (though she still enjoys the collaborative process!), and presents her second full-length program of such pieces, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Poulenc’s La bestiaire featuring newly-commissioned animal portraits, on tour in 2019.
Liz is one-fourth of Quince Ensemble, a treble-voice quartet dedicated to "charting bold new directions in vocal chamber music" (John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune). Their third album, Motherland, was released to critical acclaim by New Focus Recordings in spring 2018, and they head back to the studio to record love fail summer 2019. Liz Pearse will perform More by Natasha Anderson and Shopping List of a Poisoner by Louis Andriessen.
Natasha Anderson - More (2015) "More is a fractured intermingling of situated relations to a female self. It uses fragments of the now axiomatically popular medieval song from Martin Codax, 'Ondas do mar de Vigo', in which a Galician fisherman's wife longs for her husband, yet to return from sea. Other text is triggered by inmates accounts of the institutionalised, gendered abuse dished out at the Hay Institution for Girls (in rural NSW, Australia). More also conjures forth the voice of Anneliese Michel, a young German woman who died exhausted and malnourished as a result of exorcisms carried out in 1976, in counterpoint to the voices of the Catholic priests who tormented and tortured her. As we move through this world of symbols, we come alive in quick-fire flashes of attention across the boundaries between sense and non-sense. The vocal subject of More is a fractured human who is one moment hysterical, the next quietly authoritative. She appears briefly as if a cantor intoning some ritual, the next a glossolalic savage enacting the physical process of internalising a punishing oppression. More foregrounds the ontological violence of experiences for which we have no language. The work is an etude on the excesses of body, text, flesh and feeling, under whose tangled net we labor to make meaning out of the meaningless. We are already full to bursting and still we cannot get - nor be - enough. The most ordered voice of the work repeatedly commands: ‘still more’.“ - Natasha Anderson and Jessica Aszodi Louis Andriessen - Shopping list of a Poisoner (2000) "I would tell you all the things on the list, but then I’d have to... well, you know. The original text is in Dutch (translated to English by Nicoline Gatehouse), and features somewhat deranged humor through repetition, unexpected use of texts (most of which are not often words that are “sung”...), references to a huge range of poison plants, various implements both sinister and mundane, and a few inexplicable diversions. What else would one expect from a poisoner’s shopping list? Related question - where might one acquire everything on the list?" - Liz Pearse ![]() As a percussionist and composer based in Minneapolis, Zack Baltich melds the obscure and the familiar. He utilizes a variety of instruments, percussive and otherwise to create long-form, emotionally-driven music. This aesthetic comes from a simple artistic purpose: to connect with others in a way that inspires curiosity, satisfaction, and empathy. Whether this has been through collaborations with poets, or recording sound bouncing off of cave walls throughout Minnesota, he continues to find inspiration in the border between urban and rural settings. Zack’s self-produced projects have been supported by the American Composers Forum, Cedar Cultural Center, and Minnesota State Arts Board.
![]() Divine's Toxic Tea Party (featuring Divinewords and Anthony Dalton) is a new collection of macabre conceptual art that can be best described as the exploration of post-apocalyptic dreamscapes. Toxic Tea Party merges the concepts of life, death, grief, masks, consumerism, and the unsettling creepiness of the uncanny valley. Installation No. 1: No Shrines is the first group of works in the Toxic Tea Party collection. This conceptual performance art piece marries music, speed art, and Divine's favorite creepy pop culture icons to create a performance that's to die for.
Divinewords (aka Sydney Latimer) is a creepy, queer interdisciplinary artist from St. Paul, MN. She has worked in community arts since 1995 and started off her artistic career doing teen arts programming at the Walker Art Center. As a muralist, she has worked with world-renowned artists such as Twin Cities' muralist Marilyn Lindstrom and graffiti artist Barry McGee (Twist). As a performer, she has shared the stage with acclaimed Spoken Word and Hip-Hop legends such as The Last Poets, Ursula Rucker, Eyedea & Abilities, Brother Ali, Desdamona, and more. She has been featured at many prestigious venues such as The Historic State Theater, First Avenue, Penumbra Theater, Prince's Paisley Park, and the legendary Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City. She was also a former contributor to the Huffington Post. After living in Los Angeles for 13 years, Divine has returned to the Twin Cities and has turned her focus from writing and performing Spoken Word back to her roots in visual arts. Divine and her musician husband, Anthony Dalton, are a very eccentric couple and are known for their massive toy and pop culture memorabilia collection. Fero, featuring drummer Steve Hirsh, percussionist Babatunde Lea, multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart, and saxophonist Donald Washington, will present an improvised set in the spirit of Halloween that connects with the cycle of life.
![]() Death Mints is an improvised music and dance group featuring sound artists Yan Pang and Queen Drea, and dancers J-Sun, Darrius Strong, and Gabriel Blackburn. Yan Pang is an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at St Olaf College. J-Sun is a Ph.D. student in the Theater Arts and Dance Department at the University of Minnesota, as well as a disciplinary head of the new Hip Hop Dance track. Darrius Strong is a Twin Cities-based choreographer, dancer, and educator whose creative work has been chosen for the Walker Art Centers, Choreographers’ Evening, and Rhythmically Speaking. Gabriel Blackburn is the Artistic Director of PBC Nation, a Company Member for SHAPESHIFT, and freelances as a performer, choreographer, and dance instructor.
![]() The Ways Ensemble members include storyteller Beverly Cottman, choreographer/dancer Kenna Cottman, musicians/dancers Yonci Jameson and Ebrima Sarge and projectionist, Bill Cottman. At the Zeitgeist Halloween Festival, Yonci and Bill will present SINISTER; ways that cause unease and sudden urgency. Bill Cottman is a social landscape photographer, senryu writer and projectionist. Yonci Jameson is a musician, activist and community organizer. Together they perform in the Ways Ensemble, Voice of Culture and weekly as hosts of Mostly Jazz on KFAI FM.
![]() Professional Storyteller and Teaching Artist Katie Knutson has performed in Canada, Chile, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and around the US. She is the Storyteller-in-Residence for Bloomington Public Schools, performs regularly in the MN Fringe festival, trains Storytellers and Teaching Artists, and has worked for Stages, Stepping Stone, and Children's Theatre Companies. Find out more about Katie and her company, Rippling Stories, at www.ripplingstories.com.
![]() Delinda "Oogie" Pushetonequa is from the Meskwaki Nation currently residing in the Twin Cities. She is an actor, dancer, bag weaver, and writer. Oogie is a New Native Theatre ensemble member, a Wonderlust Productions company member, and works with various theatre companies around the Twin Cities.
![]() Loren Niemi has spent thirty-five years as a professional storyteller, creating, directing, performing and teaching stories about what matters to audiences of all ages in urban and rural settings. .
Loren tells the life he lives with immediacy and insight. He has performed on the Great Wall of China, the stages of Fringe Festivals across the country for 20 years, and worked with both Catholics and Protestants in Belfast, Northern Ireland to tell the stories of "the Troubles.” His work has been called “post-modern,” “with the dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry.” Loren Niemi began as a child fibber but soon decided that he was less interested in telling lies than in improving the truth. He is a published author and poet. His new book, "What Haunts Us" (from MoonFire Publishing) is a collection of non-traditional ghost stories. Other publications include the poetry chapbook, "Coyote Flies Coach", the award winning "The New Book of Plots" on the use of oral and written narratives and the critically acclaimed, "Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories" which he co-authored with Elizabeth Ellis on the value and necessity of stories that are hard to hear and harder to tell. Loren teaches Storytelling in the Theater Program of Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN) and Cultural Policy and Leadership in the Cultural Management Program of St. Mary’s University. He has provided storytelling and message framing workshops, as well as organizational consulting to businesses, nonprofits and government agencies around the country. He has a BA (Philosophy and Studio Arts) from St. Mary’s University (Winona, MN) and a MA in Liberal Studies (American Culture) from Hamline University (St. Paul, MN). ![]() Nothando Zulu is a Master storyteller who has been sharing stories with audiences since 1976. She shares stories that entertain, educate, motivate and inspire. She has performed in many venues as she draws from an extensive resource of colorful, often funny characters whose antics and follies leave audiences pondering their own life’s lessons. She and her husband with the help of their Board of Directors has produced a three-day storytelling festival, “Signifyin’ & Testifyin’” since 1991. Nothando is also a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grand mother, community and political activist who believes in the power of stories.
![]() Storyteller and author Christy Marie Kent was born in Mississippi and raised all over the south. Her day jobs moved her further and further north until she found herself in the frozen tundra of the Twin Cities, where she lives with her husband, two sons, and a cat who begs to return to a warmer climate. They love Minnesota and plan to stay, so the cat will have to suck it up and grow a thicker coat.
Christy is the 2016 SlamMn! grand slam champion, a multiple-time winner of the Twin Cities Moth Slam, and the author of the novels Moonshine, Madness, and Murder (2016) and Transgression (2019). She will be telling two stories at Zeitgeist Halloween Festival; one a true ghost story she experienced at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, in the third-oldest school building in continuous use in the country. The second is a fictional ghost story that takes place in her fictional hometown of Quacker Holler, Tennessee, the Lake Wobegon of the south, where the whiskey is strong, the kudzu is good-looking, and monks make moonshine to support the school. ![]() Based out of St. Paul, Minnesota, award-winning composer and sound designer Dameun Strange creates soundscapes that explore the outer limits of music and creativity, fusing them into a style and sound uniquely his own. A native of Washington, DC he was heavily influenced by his early study of Classical, Jazz, Electronic, and West African genres, and has since delved into Gospel, Neo-Soul, Acid-Jazz, Ska, and Hip-Hop, creating innovative and integrative arrangements rich in magnetic sound. A celebrated keyboardist and saxophone soloist, Dameun continues to push the boundaries of genre, using his compositions to move us toward a more inclusive and unified society.
The Terror (2018), commissioned by Zeitgeist for their 2018 Halloween Festival, is a chamber piece inspired by the 2007 historical fiction novel of the same name by author Dan Simmons. Simmons's novel fictionalized the account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic, in 1845. The story is non-linear and told from multiple perspectives. Each melodic instrument represents a different perspective; sometimes they align and at other times they may be inverted. In the piece, I attempt to convey the sense of fear of being isolated and not knowing if you will make it to your destination or return home. I attempt to convey a deep hunger, as many of the crew starved to death. I create an environment of creaking ships, slowly cracking ice and wind. Hidden within the notes is the magnificent polar bear type beast who haunts the last of the survivors.
![]() The music of Daniel Nass has been reviewed as “playful,” “eerie,” and “witty.” He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including ASCAP awards, as well as invitations to SEAMUS and SCI national conferences, and prizes in the ISU Carillon Composition Competition, the UMKC Chamber Music Composition Competition, and was one of three composers awarded a commission to write a new choral work for the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus. Other recent commissions include Zeitgeist, Stone Arch Collective, pianist Matthew McCright, Sod House Theater, and the dream songs project. A native of Howard Lake, Minnesota, Nass holds degrees from Saint Olaf College, the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory of Music, and the University of Texas at Austin. Past teachers include Kevin Puts, Donald Grantham, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, and Peter Hamlin. His works are distributed through his self-publishing company, Daniel Nass Music, and recordings are available on the Innova, Centaur, Crescent Phase, and Avid Sound Records labels.
SHADOWS OF SHADOWS PASSING by Daniel Nass
In the summer of 2018, I visited the famously haunted Palmer House in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, seeking inspiration for a new Halloween-themed commission. I slept in room 11 (known for being occupied by a spirit named “Annie”) and took part in two paranormal investigations. This work reflects what I experienced in my time there – in particular, the glimpses of shadows I observed creeping in the darkness of the hotel’s basement. The title of the work is derived from Edgar Allen Poe’s “Marginalia.” Shadows of Shadows Passing was commissioned by Zeitgeist. Special thanks to the Palmer House and Jenny Melton of the Twin Cities Paranormal Society. Katla the Hag and Her Magic Britches by Daniel Nass
While visiting Iceland in the summer of 2016, I stumbled upon the story behind the naming of “Katla” – a very active, dangerous volcano in the southern part of the country. As the legend goes, Katla was a foul-tempered housekeeper at a monastery back in the 12th century. She was rumored to be a witch who owned a pair of magic britches that made it possible for whoever wore them to run as fast as the wind without tiring. This work attempts to capture the spirit and character of the alleged hag. …AND THE SOUND IS THUNDER by Daniel Nass
“What do you know about sleep paralysis?” That’s how this collaboration between myself and Minnesota playwright Rachel Teagle began. As we were in the early stages of what we wanted this piece to be, Rachel messaged that question to me, and touched upon something with which I have had significant experience. My first, most noteworthy episode occurred in college, waking up in the middle of the night to see an intensely bright light outside my 4th floor dorm room window. I was unable to move until the light faded away five minutes later. …And the Sound is Thunder is a depiction of the waking nightmare and surreal experience of sleep paralysis. ![]() Rachel Teagle is a playwright, director, and comedian who grew up in the Silicon Valley and graduated from Carleton College. She has had the privilege of working with many distinguished and supportive theaters, including Bedlam Theatre, the Workhaus Collective, Synchronicity Theatre, the Horizon Theatre Apprentice Company, and Serenbe Playhouse. While living in Georgia, she helped found the Atlanta Fringe Festival, now going into its fourth year. She has written seven successful adaptations of classic literature for Serenbe Playhouse’s award-winning family play series, most recently Robin Hood. She was awarded the Leah Ryan’s Fund for Emerging Women Writers prize in 2012 for The Ever and After. She currently resides in St. Paul.
![]() Exploring amalgamations of contemporary, rock, jazz, pop and electronic music, Doug Opel’s work has been sought after and performed by the National Young Arts Foundation, American Modern Ensemble, Nautilus Music-Theater, Vox Novus, Duo Petrof, Keys to the Future, Vision of Sound and the Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble. He is a recipient of the Aaron Copland Award and winner of Definiens’ Composition Competition Competition.
He has received commissions from the Chatterton-McCright Duo, Ricochet Duo, the Bridge Chamber Music Festival, the Chautauqua Institution, the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, pianists Robert Satterlee and Nicola Melville, MATA, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and bass-baritone Timothy Jones. He has also written for cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, PUBLIQuartet and the ensemble Intersection. Opel’s 3 preludes to missing the point can be found on Melville’s Dozen, by pianist Nicola Melville [Innova Recordings]. Dilukkenjon for two pianos, appears both on Duo Petrof’s 88x2 [Columna Música], and the newly released Powerhouse Pianists II, featuring pianists Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen [American Modern Recordings]. Midnight Mary by Doug Opel was inspired by an urban legend from New England.
[from Damnedct.com] “...in 1872, a woman by the name of Mary Hart died in New Haven {Connecticut] and was thereafter interred in Evergreen Cemetery. ...different stories surround the demise of Ms. Hart. The ...most horrific -- says her family found her apparently dead of a stroke at the stroke of midnight and quickly had her buried; her aunt, however, had a dream the next night in which she saw Mary still alive in her coffin and plead with the powers-that-be to dig her up. After they finally capitulated, dug her up and opened her casket, they discovered a horrific sight: Mary was dead, but apparently hadn't been quite that way when buried -- her fingernails were bloodied and the inside of her coffin was shredded as she had apparently tried to claw her way out. [Another] story... Mary having been a witch in life and her grave being cursed -- anyone who was there at midnight would meet a terrible end when the witch rose from the dead. Since New Haven is renowned as a college town, there was always a student or two who scoffed at the story and tried to stay the night in the cemetery, only to be found dead the next morning, a victim of the murderous spirit of Midnight Mary.” Taphephobia - the fear of being buried alive - is said to have been fairly widespread around the late 1800s/early 1900s. An industry of sorts evolved whereby coffins could be purchased equipped with an adequate supply of air piped in from the surface as well as signaling mechanisms - very often, a bell or bells of some sort, with strings tied to the head and limbs below. These became the basis of my programmatic material: wooden knocks, scrapes, music boxes, a triangle for the bells, all built around a static piano line intended to evoke a sense of being trapped, or simultaneously, the image of Mary’s ghost walking the grounds of Evergreen Cemetery, haunting those who dared to visit her grave at midnight. The first movement, Evergreen references the cemetery where Mary is buried. Her gravemarker – a massive marble slab, no mere headstone – reads: “At high noon just from, and about to renew her daily work, in her full strength of body and mind Mary E. Hart having fallen prostrate: remained unconscious, until she died at midnight, October 15, 1872 born December 16, 1824.” Arched above in black letters, the more cryptic: “The people shall be troubled at midnight and pass away”. Followers of the legend(s) take this as proof that Mary was meant to haunt those who disturb her. In reality, the quote is extracted from the Bible: Job, chapter 34, verse 20. The second and final movement, Arthropodan polymetric dance battle imagines the invevitable invasion of Mary’s coffin by maggots, beetles, blowflies and other insects known to break down or decompose the human body. The movement opens with scurrying lines in the piano and steel drums meant to evoke the image of a moving carpet of all things creepy-crawly. From this, a cajon – continuing the theme of wooden knocks and scrapes established in the first movement – derives a groove over which the bass clarinet slowly develops a solo line. The overall effect is meant to be more light-hearted, exploiting the underlying dark comedy that is at the heart of many of the most famous teen slashers flicks. ![]() Pat O'Keefe is a multifaceted performer who is endlessly active and in high demand in a wide variety of musical styles and genres. He has performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras and wind ensembles, played for belly dancers, and rocked samba in the streets.
Pat draws upon this multiplicity of experiences and interests in his performances, which employ a "superb control of extended techniques," and have been described as "passionate," "explosive," and "breath-stoppingly exquisite." He is currently the co-artistic director and woodwind player for the contemporary music ensemble Zeitgeist, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. With Zeitgeist he has premiered over two hundred new works, and has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Sensemayá Sense of Mind by Pat O'Keefe
Sensemayá is a well-known and exciting orchestral work written by Silvestre Revueltas in the late 1930s. It is a classic of the “scary” orchestral genre, and I always thought it would be fun to arrange the piece for Zeitgeist. In researching the work I discovered that it was based on a poem by Afro-Cuban writer Nicolás Guillén, and his poem contains references to Afro-Cuban cultural practices, so I decided to add a little touch of that music into the mix. I was also thinking about the festivals like Halloween from many cultures that happen at this time of year that celebrate ancestors, the dead, and the symbolic transition from Summer (“life) into Winter (“death”), so I wanted to represent that musically as well, with influences drawn from the way nature is often depicted in orchestral music. I think of my version of Sensemayá as an adaptation, not just a straight arrangement, hence my alternate title Sense of Mind. |