According to MPR News, Art Hounds is a member of Minnesota’s arts community who looks beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

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Walking to New Orleans (and beyond)

Martha Bird is a Twin Cities visual artist specializing in sculptural basketry. She admires the show of Victoria Bradford Styrbicki »Network: A connected river,” which includes a series of fishing nets and stories from the artist’s journey on foot down the Mississippi River.

The exhibit is open through Jan. 10 at the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization’s (MWMO) Stormwater Park and Learning Center in northeast Minneapolis.

This Saturday, Styrbicki will host a free net-making workshop. Register here. The artist will also be present at the exhibition working on nets on Monday, November 4 and December 16 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Martha says: In 2019, Victoria walked from the headwaters to the Louisiana coast, and she stopped in 104 different communities and spoke to the people in those communities and listened with compassion and grace to their stories about the river.

When you walk into the exhibit, what you immediately notice are these very, very large nets. It has round threads. It has nets from floor to ceiling and then all over the ceiling. Then, upon entering, you see a map of where she stopped. She has quotes from people she has spoken to. She has a 14-minute video made by members of the different communities, and the video begins with the indigenous community of Prairie Island, Minnesota, talking about water.

What I take away from this exhibition is how powerful art is when it arises from deep within you. So not only did she live along the Mississippi River, but her ancestors are net makers, but her current family members are net makers as well. They use them for fishing. People still use them. It’s a dying art.

And so the effort that she’s put into learning about the river, learning about the history of it, and presenting all of that in a way that the audience can engage with it and learn about it as well, is really, really powerful.

—Martha Bird

“The Mikado” settles in the Scottish Highlands

Doris Rubenstein can’t wait to see Gilbert & Sullivan’s OperaThe McAdo, » which is “The Mikado” with a Scottish twist. The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company moves this show from Japan to the Scottish Highlands.

Two groups of directors will alternate their performances at the Conn Theater, located inside the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. The show runs from Friday November 1st to November 24th.

Doris says she’s seen “The Mikado” several times, but: The very concept of this “McAdo” is enough to pique my curiosity. They took the action from Japan, moved it to the Scottish Highlands and renamed it.

The storyline bears some resemblance to the original, but many place names and characters have been given a Celtic touch. For example, Nanky-Poo is Lanky Doug, Yum Yum is Wynn Somme, and Kata Sha is Katie Shaw.

Sir Arthur Sullivan’s music is the same, but WS Gilbert may be rolling in his grave to hear the parodies made from his lyrics to match the Scottish locations and rhyme with the new names given to the characters in the story.

-Doris Rubenstein

Synth and snyth again

Rochester trombonist John Sievers looks forward to the world premiere of a composition by Winona musician Eric Heukeshoven called The Re-Synth Project which is written for concert bands and music technology.

The piece will be performed by two different groups as part of their concerts this weekend at the DuFresne Performing Arts Center at Winona State University. The High School Honor Band Festival will perform on Saturday, November 2 at 5 p.m. and the WSU Wind Ensemble will perform on Sunday, November 3 at 2 p.m.

John says: I guess part of what really interests me is that some of the triggers are samples of traditional group instruments that have been pre-recorded.

So you’re basically hearing members of the Winona State Wind Ensemble, duetting with themselves in an earlier version. But also, some of the samples are things like crowd noises or things like birdsong that are maybe not traditional music that you would hear an outgroup create.

—John Sievers