FREE Courtroom Concert: Songs of the Season featuring Kaleidoscope Quartet
Thursday, December 12, 6:00PM
Landmark Center, Cortile
Songs of the Season: Celebrating MN Composers and Poets
featuring Kaleidoscope Quartet and OboeBass!
with J. David Moore, bodhrán
hosted and curated by Abbie Betinis
This year’s program (12 noon & repeats 6pm), celebrates the many aspects of Minnesota winter through the close harmony vocals of Kaleidoscope Quartet, and instrumentalists Carrie Vecchione (oboe/English horn), Rolf Erdahl (double bass), and J David Moore (bodhran). Highlights of the one-hour show include world premieres by Ian Cook and Abbie Betinis, music by Sara Thomsen, Linda Kachelmeier, Richard Rasch, and Jeremy Messersmith, and interweaves an icy theme in “There is a Humming” (2024) by Mary Ellen Childs, inspired by various Nordic names for ice, and “Return of the Snowbirds” by David Evan Thomas, inspired by Minnesota visual artist Cy DeCosse.
About Kaleidoscope Quartet
Minnesota-based Kaleidoscope Quartet presents four-part vocal music with joy, range, and soul. The quartet’s four members Taylor Quinn (baritone), Dana Skoglund (bass), Jack Vishneski (tenor 1), and Ian Cook (tenor 2) bring far-reaching specialties, skills, and vocal timbres to create a kaleidoscope of sound across diverse genres and styles. All four members have their own musical and extramusical careers but are brought together by their friendship and passion for vocal chamber music.
The quartet began with in-home performances for Dana’s wife Cheryl, who was confined at home with complications from a heart transplant. Eventually, the quartet sang some of Cheryl’s favorite songs at her memorial service. Since this humble beginning, Kaleidoscope Quartet has performed across Minnesota, with regular performances in the Twin Cities. Each song and performance reveals a kaleidoscope of musical colors that emerges from their joined voices.
About OboeBass!
Carrie Vecchione, oboe, and Rolf Erdahl, bass, are OboeBass! Called “pioneers” by MPR, they concertize widely around the U.S., and toured Norway in 2017. They have commissioned over forty new oboe/bass pieces and recorded seven CDs, effectively creating the oboe/bass duo genre. They won a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant for Valerie Coleman’s American Vein, a 2020 Fromm Commissioning grant for a new piece by Mary Ellen Childs based on impressions from her expedition to Svalbard, and were recently awarded a Barlow Commissioning grant for a new OboeBass! piece by Alyssa Morris. Other awards include grants from the American Composers Forum and teaching and performing grants from MRAC, The MN State Arts Board, and SD Arts Council. Carrie teaches at the MacPhail Center for Music and in her home studio. Rolf teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College. www.oboebass.com facebook.com/oboebass @OboeBassDuo
OboeBass! Is the only professional oboe/bass duo in the world. Their mission is to keep music alive through concerts and educational programs. They have commissioned many new works for this ensemble effectively creating an oboe/bass genre and have won commissioning grants from Chamber Music America, the Fromm Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, and the Jerome Foundation. Their unique and engaging education programs entertain and enlighten elementary age students to adult audiences and have been supported through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and the South Dakota Arts Council.
Oboist Carrie Vecchione is an active performer and teacher in the Minnesota Twin Cities. She has been a sub in various Twin Cities ensembles such as the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Sinfonia. She performs with the The Northern Lights Music Festival and has also been a member of The Duluth/Superior Symphony, The Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and The Baton Rouge Symphony. She has performed at numerous conferences of the International Double Reed Society and the International Society of Bassists Currently she is Artist Faculty at The MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis and the University of Wisconsin/River Falls.
Bassist Rolf Erdahl teaches at Gustavus and freelances widely. Previously Principal Bass of the Winnipeg Symphony, he has also subbed with the MN Orchestra and SPCO and performed with the Honolulu Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, and New World Symphony. Fulbright studies in Norway culminated in his Peabody Conservatory doctoral dissertation on Edvard Grieg’s music for strings.
