Arts and Entertainment

Three local women who led an after-school sewing group at Northfield Middle School have received the Healthy Community Initiative “Making a Difference” Award for May 2013. The award celebrates those groups and individuals in the community who have a positive influence on Northfield youth.

Joyce Schlossin started the group and recruited Beth Endert and Emily Schmitz to assist her. Over a 12-week period, they taught a group of about a dozen girls to make items such as scarves, mittens, headbands, placemats, potholders, pillows and cell phone holders.

“They were pleased – they couldn’t believe they could do it,” Endert said. “We’re already getting ideas for next time.”

Susan Sanderson, coordinator of the middle school TORCH program, said the women also taught the girls about the economics of sewing, how to save money and make the most out of every scrap of fabric.

“Joyce and her partners have great energy, and we are so fortunate to have them sharing their skills and love of sewing,” Sanderson said.

- Written by Joy Riggs, HCI Board member and freelance journalist

**********************************************************************
The Healthy Community Initiative and the Northfield News present the Making a Difference Award cooperatively. If you know an individual or group that you would like to nominate for this award, click HERE for nomination guidelines and the easy-to-complete application or find HCI on Facebook.  Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis and are selected by a review team of HCI board members and local youth.

In a new installation celebrating 25 years of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the work of Carleton College art professors David Lefkowitz and Stephen Mohring is featured in “Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf.” On Thursday, May 23, The Walker Art Center will open two eight-hole courses, featuring individual holes created by various architects, artists, engineers, machinists, and mini-golf aficionados. The new interactive installation features everything from garden gnomes masquerading as foosball players to a scale model of a French chateau, along with mazes, gopher holes, and contours mapped from the course of the legendary Augusta National Golf Club. The result is a delight for both serious golf purists and lovers of outdoor kitsch.

Lefkowitz and Mohrig contributed Hole 3, entitled “18 Holes in One.” The hole is a physical manifestation of an overlay of all 18 legendary greens at the Augusta National Golf Course, home of the Masters Tournament. The result will thrill and challenge both the novice and seasoned mini-golfer alike. With 18 potential targets in their sites as they approach the undulating surface of the composition structure, golfers will encounter a nonlinear spatiotemporal golfing experience like no other.

Michigan based historian Bill Jamerson will perform a program of songs and stories about Michigan's Upper Peninsula at the Northfield Senior Center on Wednesday June 12  at 3 pm.  The program is presented by the Northfield Public Library and co-sponsored by the Northfield Senior Center, and is free and open to the public.

When Doug Bratland and Ann Mosey sat down for a beer at The Contented Cow a couple of years back, the conversation circled around how to create an arts-focused event calendar for local artists. They had heard time and time again that there was a void of immediate access to when, who, what, and where things were going on in Northfield.

Fast forward a bit: Amy Smith joins the group, and the three of them develop Northfield ArtsTown, a comprehensive website for artists, venues, and fans in which everyone and everything is connected.

The new website, online now at ArtsTown.us, offers not only a comprehensive calendar of local events for dance, film, literary arts, music, theater, and visual arts, the site also features membership-based portfolios of local artists and arts-related businesses.

The Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra (CVRO) will complete its 34th season with two concerts playing music to celebrate the coming of spring. Under the theme ”Voices of Spring”, mezzo soprano soloist Deesa Staats will join the CVRO on Thursday, May 16, at 7:00 P.M. at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault and on Friday, May 17, at 7:00 P.M. at St. Ansgar’s Lutheran Church in Cannon Falls.

Thursday, May 16: Back by popular demand, Billy Johnson confirms his status as one of the Twin Cities’ best feel-good, blue-collar, barroom-rousing tunesmiths. Billy has opened for the BoDeans, Five For Fighting, Train, Poco, Paul Thorn, Van Hunt, Lowen and Navarro, Old 97s, and many many more. Learn more at www.billyjohnsonmusic.com.
 

Friday, May 17: Northfield native Jon Manners has charmed audiences locally and throughout the Twin Cities with his passionate brand of bluesy folk-rock. The Lounge is pleased to bring this engaging artist back to the Tavern stage. More at www.jonmanners.com.

St. Olaf College Writer in Residence Benjamin Percy recently released his second novel, Red Moon, to widespread critical acclaim. 

On the heels of their first official concert in almost seven months, the revered St. Paul Chamber Orchestra comes to Carleton College for a special performance on Saturday, May 18 at 8 p.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. Tickets, available at the door, are $10 the general public, $7 for students and seniors, and free for those with a Carleton or St. Olaf College ID.

Considered to be one of the finest chamber ensembles in the world, the SPCO’s performance will feature a pairing of French music—including Arthur Honegger’s “Pastorale d’été”and Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Symphony No. 2”—with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante K. 364.” The program also includes Heinz Holliger’s “Sketches for Violin and Viola,” an homage to the work of Mozart.

This not-to-be-missed concert will be conducted by violinist Thomas Zehetmair and also features acclaimed violist Ruth Killius.

Acclaimed award-winning author Benjamin Percy, currently touring the globe in support of his latest buzzworthy release, “Red Moon,” will appear at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 20 at J. Grundy’s Rueb-N-Stein in Northfield. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature a reading from “Red Moon” and reception with the author, as well as a performance by popular local band, The Counterfactuals. Copies of “Red Moon” will also be available for purchase at the event.

Percy’s website, www.benjaminpercy.com, offers this description of “Red Moon:”

“They live among us.
They are your neighbour, your mother, your lover.
They change.

The Northfield Arts Guild is hosting auditions for THE MUSIC MAN (Book, Music and Lyrics by: MEREDITH WILLSON; Story by: MEREDITH WILLSON and FRANKLIN LACEY) on Sunday, May 12 and Monday, May 13; 6:00 - 8:30 pm both days.  CALL THE NORTHFIELD ARTS GUILD THEATER OFFICE at 507-645-8877 for a half hour audition appointment.  Walk-ins accepted.  

At their April 2013 board meeting, the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) Board approved grants to support four projects and activities designed to benefit Northfield youth and 11 Service Learning projects designed by Arcadia middle school students.  The projects are all funded through HCI’s Investing in Youth grant program.

Funded projects included:

Former Carleton College film teacher, Eric Tretbar, returns Saturday, May 11 at 7pm to the Carleton College Weitz Center for Creativity Cinema for the Northfield community premiere of his new feature film, GIRL MEETS BIKE. Members of the cast and crew will attend, with a question and answer session to follow. This event is free and open to the public.

The Vintage Band Festival, August 1-4, will be the highlight of the summer as it welcomes re-enactment bands from across the United States and abroad to dust off their horns and old sheet music and bring music to life — in all its glory — from days gone by.

The international festival boasts 100 concerts at outdoor parks, performance stages, dining establishments and pubs in the picturesque river town of Northfield and at a multitude of concert sites in nearby communities. Find a full schedule of “living history” performances, auxiliary events and attractions, plus a sample travel itinerary for discovering more treasures in southern Minnesota, at vintagebandfestival.org.

Participating in this year’s Festival, amid the vast collection of ensembles that accentuate cultural influences, genres and period-inspired repertoires, are several Midwest historic revival bands:

The League of Women Voters Northfield - Cannon Falls, in collaboration with Carleton College, is showing a documentary on Carleton honorary degree holder Rosalie Wahl -- at the Weitz Center for Creativity, 320 3rd Street East, on April 27 (Saturday) at 11 am.

The new documentary "Girl from Birch Creek,” chronicles the life and legacy of Justice Rosalie Wahl - the first woman to sit on the Minnesota Supreme Court. This film is brought to us by Lightshed Productions, a Minnesota film production company owned by John Kaul and Emily Haddad, who also produced the film. It is narrated by Nina Totenberg.

The Northfield Arts Guild is excited to announce this year’s installment of the VERY SHORT PLAY FESTIVAL.  The VSPF is a festival of ten minute plays that is open to playwrights of all ages and skill levels.  Playwrights submitted their work for review and were chosen for production by Anna Moltchanova, a professor at Carleton College. According to Moltchanova, “ This years selection includes a lively and very short biography of Walt Disney, the adventures of a time-traveling settler in the Mall of America, some hilarious and profound artistic explorations of two big holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas, a story of internets influence on our family life, love and friendship and, of course, plays dealing with the perennial themes of war and peace, life and death.”