13 hours Ago By Jay Gabler
DULUTH — As March goes out like a lamb (hopefully), this week's concerts and other arts events encourage Northlanders to take a moment for reflection before the cabin fever finally breaks. Mary Bue album release Mary Bue may live in Minneapolis, but she'll always be embraced as part of the Duluth music scene. The University of Minnesota Duluth graduate got her start at an Amazing Grace open mic night, and her longtime involvement in our scene included booking that former venue as well as serving on the Homegrown board.
So it will be something of a homecoming when Bue takes the Sacred Heart Music Center stage Friday, March 28; Gaelynn Lea opens the show. ADVERTISEMENT Bue is celebrating the release of her ninth album, "The Wildness of Living and Dying." Written in the wake of a 2020 carjacking, the album's songs "express strength in vulnerability, resilience of the human spirit, the growth experienced within a cycle of destruction, and, ultimately, transformation," wrote Bue in an email to the News Tribune (sacredheartmusic.
org). mOthertongue A concert at the College of St. Scholastica is interrogating the European view of Asia, which historically emphasized "exotic landscapes and fetishized female figures," as a concert description notes.
On Friday, March 28, at Mitchell Auditorium, soprano Jennifer Lien and pianist Lina Yoo-Min Lee will perform newly-composed songs by Asian American women composers, and take audience questions following the recital. "I am struck," wrote Lien in a program note, "by the recurring themes that resonate across the three song cycles: colonization; cultural shame; living in between cultures; culture loss; microaggression; pride. To sing these truths is to find and reclaim power that has been lost somewhere along the way" (thecollegeofstscholastica.
ticketspice.com/mothertongue). Circle of Life Yes, that's a "Lion King" reference.
Arrowhead Chorale's spring concert — taking place at First Lutheran Church on Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29 — spotlights "songs of the stage and screen." The movies and musicals featured are stylistically diverse, to say the least, ranging from "State Fair" to "Platoon." Julie Taymor's smash stage adaptation of "The Lion King" is renowned for its use of puppetry, and accordingly In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre veteran Paul Robinson will contribute "elements of puppetry theatre" to the production.
In the words of Oscar Hammerstein II, "Don't miss it! Don't even be late!" (arrowheadchorale.com) Rob Hadaway Storytelling Festival The Rob Hadaway Storytelling Festival is named after the Duluth Children's Museum's late creative director, who launched the festival in 2018. "Rob had a way of instantly reading the audience and giving them what they needed," Hadaway's former assistant Laurel Sanders told the News Tribune in 2023.
"He's someone who truly understood the value of storytelling." ADVERTISEMENT This year's festival will take place at the museum Saturday, March 29. It will feature, according to an event description, "multiple storytelling sessions throughout the day, followed by hands-on arts programming that enhances each story" (duluthchildrensmuseum.
org). Trans Day of Visibility On Sunday, March 30, Trans Northland is celebrating the annual Trans Day of Visibility with a community event at the St. Louis County Depot.
In addition to a panel conversation and over a dozen vendors, the event will feature live music from Campfire Tranarchists, Mara Lovejoy and Elsa Murray. Food will be available from Bowlz N' Thangz. Now an international event, Trans Day of Visibility was founded in the Great Lakes region by Michigan advocate Rachel Crandall-Crocker.
Acknowledging the Transgender Day of Remembrance that takes place each Nov. 20, Crandall-Crocker told NPR in 2024, "I wanted a day that we could focus on the living, and where we could have rallies all as one community all the way around the world" (facebook.com/transnorthland).
Angela Hewitt Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt is regularly mentioned alongside the likes of Andras Schiff and Peter Hill as one of the foremost living interpreters of J.S. Bach.
Hewitt will be in Duluth on Tuesday, April 1, performing at the College of St. Scholastica's Mitchell Auditorium thanks to Matinee Musicale. Everyone's a VIP at this concert; a free post-concert reception will offer attendees an opportunity to meet the famed performer (matineemusicale.
org)..
