UNDERWATER COUSINS
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October 31, 7:30 p.m The Anderson Center
163 Tower View Drive, Red Wing, MN 55066 November 1, 7:30 p.m. Gustavus Adolphus College Jesse Björling Recital Hall 800 W College Ave, St. Peter, MN 56082 November 2, 2:00 p.m. The Anderson Center 163 Tower View Drive, Red Wing, MN 55066 THE GUSTAVUS CONCERT IS FREE; RED WING EVENTS ARE TICKETED |
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Each new collaboration with a composer presents Zeitgeist with something new to consider. Perhaps it's a new way of viewing tonality, musical form, improvisation.
Or, the field of inquiry is extra-musical and affords insight into history, relationships, places, or people. Getting to learn and grow through this process is the greatest joy of the work we do. Our recent collaboration with Northfield composer JC Sanford encourages us to look below the surface and consider more deeply the nature of the fishes that share the planet with us. It's led us to learn more about the nature of fish, tangle with the role of predator and prey, commercial and sport fishing, determination of invasive versus native species, and the impact of oceans and the life within on ecological health for the entire planet. After months of workshops, conversations, and a work-in-progress performance, JC Sanford and Zeitgeist are ready to bring Underwater Cousins to our wider community of listeners into the musical conversation. Come ponder the pisces with us! PROGRAM Holding Patterns by Randy Bauer Underwater Cousins by JC Sanford (images and narration by Mia Kakitani-Sanford) Zeitgeist member Heather Barringer was interviewed by Phil Nusbaum for KBEM Radio. Give a listen! About the WORKSHolding Patterns (2020)
By Randy Bauer For Zeitgeist In Holding Patterns, written for Zeitgeist, different rhythmic patterns concatenate to form constantly shifting kinetic forms, not unlike the way a kaleidoscope continuously morphs colors and shapes. The first movement builds slowly through tight canons ("Battle Patterns"), before releasing into the main section, characterized by pulses in the highest register of the piano. Despite their persistence, the movement settles into a more troubled landscape of shifting colors ("Sorrowful Siege"). The ensemble engages in layers of simple, single-note ostinati in the second movement ("Patterns in a Warm Field"), while swirls of electronic sound envelop the texture. In the final movement, canonic techniques return as the energy builds to a frenzy; the last section, while more subdued, is carried once again by an interlocking pattern-based theme. Underwater Cousins 2025 (World Premiere)
by JC Sanford Underwater Cousins is a multi-movement piece inspired by the book What a Fish Knows, by Jonathan Balcombe. Being an animal lover most of my life, I have always been interested how fish were more complicated beings than they were generally represented and wondered why they seemed to be classified so differently from those animals who live on land or have fur. Balcombe’s book outlined so many different aspects of fishes’ complex life, understanding, and relationships that were fascinating and even astounding to me at times, which inspired me to investigate deeper into examples of how fish species and individuals demonstrate the things they know, perceive, and feel. Throughout this work, we visit various fishes in displays of their personal and often surprising experiences, and how we see each fish is not part of a bulk commodity known as “fish,” but as unique individual fishes with their own personalities and desires. This includes the African tigerfish, whose stunning math computations allow them to hunt well outside their usual environs; the grouper and moray eel, who transcend species differences and team up to stalk prey with more effective results for both; the frillfin goby, who while smashing the laughable myth of fish short-term memory, manages to escape danger through brain power we humans would be jealous of. And the white-spotted pufferfish, whose courtship results in artwork worthy of any museum above water. Also, the American brook lamprey, who builds nests in a community collective by moving stones with their sucker mouths, and Elvis, the smallmouth bass, who enjoys time with his friend as much as any human extrovert. The piece culminates with a vision of a world where human- and fishkind can coexist with kindness, respect, and empathy. — JC Sanford Heather Barringer posed a few questions to JC Sanford about the work. Read that interview below! About the composers
RANDY BAUER is a composer and jazz musician based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His works have been performed across a range of cities and venues, from Austin to Zagreb, including New York, Chicago, Washington (the Kennedy Center), Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Los Angeles, St. Petersburg (Russia), Uppsala (Sweden), Berlin, Paris, Weimar, and in many other smaller cities and at universities across the United States.
Premieres of his work have been given by members of the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Brentano String Quartet, eighth blackbird, Nash Ensemble of London, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Synergy Vocals, New Millennium Ensemble, MATA Micro-Orchestra with Theo Bleckmann, Network for New Music, and many others. His music appears on Albany and Cedille Records. He was named a 2013-14 McKnight Foundation Fellow in Music Composition by the McKnight Foundation of Minnesota. He also received a major fellowship in 2006 from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He has been a resident artist at Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and has received many regional and national awards, including three ASCAP/Morton Gould Awards for Young Composers. He is also an accomplished jazz pianist and composer, and has received recognition from DownBeat, the Commission Project, Jazz Composers Alliance, and has won the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer's Award. 
JC Sanford is a wide-ranging musician, deeply rooted in the traditions of Jazz and Classical music, yet constantly pushing at their boundaries. A protégé of legendary composer and trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, he has appeared on over 30 recordings as a trombonist, conductor, composer, and producer, including his 2014 CD with the JC Sanford Orchestra entitled Views from the Inside, which yielded international acclaim and was awarded the coveted 2014 Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant. His original compositions and arrangements have been performed by such diverse artists as John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Danilo Perez, Gretchen Parlato, the Swedish Wind Ensemble, Japanese koto-player Yumi Kurosawa, British singer-songwriter Joy Askew, and Grammy-nominated classical pianist Andrew Russo. JC also conducts the thrice-Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, and has conducted the Alice Coltrane Orchestra, the North German Radio Jazz Big Band (NDR), the Alan Ferber Nonet with Strings, and the JazzMN Orchestra. Since returning to his home state of MN from New York City in 2016, he has received a 2018 McKnight Composer Fellowship, several grants from the MN State Arts Board to record his compositions and arrangements, and co-founded the Twin Cities Jazz Composers’ Workshop with wife and fellow composer Asuka Kakitani.
JC recently released a new CD, Denki. His Bandcamp page is here. Mia Kakitani-Sanford is currently a 5th-grader at Prairie Creek Community School in Northfield, MN. In recent years, she has participated in several theater productions with Young People’s Theater Workshop, Storybook Theatre, and Prairie Fire Theatre in the Northfield area, and will be starring as the title character in Purple Door Theater's upcoming production of Winnie-the-Pooh in December 2025. She is an art student of Eve Strasser and has provided artwork for several CD covers. Mia also studies viola with Laura Geissler, participates in Irish dance, and has a green belt in karate. Tickets can be securely purchased by credit card or through your PayPal account in advance, or by cash, check, or credit card at the door. Tickets purchased online will be held at the door.
UNDERWATER COUSINS is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.
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