One-hundred-ten years ago today, the Minneapolis Symphony played its first concert, led by its founder and first conductor, Emil J. Oberhoffer. As the Minnesota Orchestra’s website points out, Nov. 5, 1903, was shortly after baseball’s first World Series (Boston – then the Boston Americans – won against the Pittsburgh Pirates) and shortly before the Wright Brothers made the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight. Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds, a lot more ground than the orchestra’s management and musicians have been able to cover in the 12 months and 36 days of the lockout.

Meanwhile, MOA board member Ken Cutler wrote a letter to the Minneapolis Star Tribune restating the importance of protecting the endowment, lest the orchestra end up like the New York City Opera (which might not be dead after all). The newly renovated Orchestra Hall sits empty except for rentals. The Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and are presenting their own season of concerts. Up next: “Skrowaczewski Conducts Titans of the Romantic Era,” with pianist Lydia Artymiw, Nov. 14 and 15 at the Ted Mann. And then: “Eiji Oue Returns – A Tchaikovsky Spectacular!” with pianist Jon Kimura Parker, Dec. 14 and 15 at the Minneapolis Convention Center Auditorium. FMI and tickets for both are on the musicians’ website.

Garrison Keillor had this to say during Sunday’s broadcast of “A Prairie Home Companion,” live from the State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis: “The bad news is that the Minnesota Orchestra is not playing. They’ve been locked out of Orchestra Hall now for more than a year. After Orchestra Hall carried out a $50 million renovation project and the year after their CEO was paid $619 thousand in salary and bonus, they didn’t have enough money left to pay musicians, and so they’re not playing, and we miss them in Minneapolis.” Thunderous applause.

If you have a spare million or so, maybe you can be the new owner of the sunburst Fender Stratocaster Bob Dylan played on July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, the day he “went electric.” The audience booed, Dylan was called a traitor to folk music, Pete Seeger swung an ax at the sound system (OK, that part isn’t true, but he reportedly said that if he had an ax, he’d use it), and American music changed forever. The guitar goes up for auction Dec. 6 at Christie’s in New York City. For the past 48 years, it has been with a New Jersey family, who took possession after Dylan left it on an airplane. The pilot was the current owner’s father. Attempts were made to return the guitar, but Dylan never responded. Also up for auction: handwritten and typewritten lyrics found inside the case. That would be a fun auction to attend, just to see who else shows up. It would be great if Dylan’s Strat went to the National Museum of American History, like Tito Puente’s timbales and Prince’s Yellow Cloud guitar.

St. Paul’s City Art Collaboratory, a new art-science program of Public Art Saint Paul, held its first official public gathering on Friday, Nov. 1, at St. Paul’s historic City House. Susannah Schouweiler of mnartists.com was there to hear reports about projects-in-progress and plans for the future. The Collaboratory brings artists and science professionals together to engage with the urban environment and each other in creative conversations about sustainability. A 2009 city ordinance mandates that St. Paul involve artists in every major capital project. In other words, artists aren’t just about sculptures and murals; they’re about city government, city life, and city projects. It’s a mind-blowingly good idea.

Our picks for the week

Tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 5): Ensemble Dal Niente at the SPCO Center’s Music Room. The latest installment in SPCO’s Liquid Music series features the smart and fearless Chicago-based contemporary music collective in a program of music by Rebecca Saunders, John Cage, Ashley Fure, Stefan Prins, Enno Poppe, and the world premiere of “The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms” by Minnesota composer Noah Keesecker, who describes his new work as “anxious and frenetic music poured over a thick pulse of lethargy.” And synched video. Series curator Kate Nordstrum promises “wild rides for everyone in the room.” 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets. This is a good week for new music in the Twin Cities; see Zeitgeist’s New Music Cabaret below.

Courtesy of the SPCO

Ensemble Dal Niente plays Tuesday at the SPCO Center’s Music Room

Tonight: “The Invisible Lighthouse,” a film and live performance by Thomas Dolby at the Cedar. Most of us know English New Wave pop star Dolby for his catchy 1982 hit, “She Blinded Me with Science.” Forget all about that. Tonight is about the life and death of a lighthouse on the Suffolk coast. Dolby grew up there and watched its lights from his bedroom window. DJ Jake Rudh (Transmission, the Current) opens a night of personal art and storytelling. Presented by First Avenue. Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8. FMI and tickets.

Tonight through Saturday: The Twin Cities Horror Festival II continues at the Southern. Ten days, seven plays, 40 performances. Think Fringe, but smaller-scale, in one place, with a horror theme. We saw Four Humors’ “The Murderer Did It!” on Halloween night. The Southern was the ideal setting for a fast-paced, twisty-turny Clue-type mystery set in the sub-basement of a London office building. When the lights go down in the Southern, it’s really, really dark in there. Among tonight’s offerings, a one-night-only free performance of the improv show “K.A. Byrtr: Mayor of the Last Twin Standing” by The Theater of Public Policy (T2P2). 11:30 p.m. FMI, schedule and tickets here.

Wednesday at The Bookcase in Wayzata: P.S. Duffy reads from her new book, “The Cartographer of No Man’s Land.” Historical fiction set in Nova Scotia and France, Duffy’s debut novel is being compared to Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain” and E. Annie Proulx’ “The Shipping News.” We love it when a Minnesota author gets this kind of attention. Duffy lives in Rochester, where she’s the science writer for the Mayo Clinic Neural Engineering Laboratory. 7 p.m., free.

Thursday: The Edina Film Festival begins at the Edina Cinema. You didn’t know Edina has its own film festival? That’s OK; this is only the third year. The eclectic line-up, a mix of new films and classics, starts tonight at 6 with “The Fabulous Ice Age,” a film by Minneapolis photographer Keri Pickett about the great American touring ice shows (“Ice Follies,"“Ice Capades,” “Holiday on Ice”) and continues at 8 p.m. with “Ghost Light” from local filmmaker John Gaspard. It ends Saturday with “The Big Lebowski,” the 1998 Coen Brothers classic that abides. FMI, schedule, tickets and trailers here.

Thursday:Zeitgeist’s New Music Cabaret begins at Studio Zin Lowertown. It’s year five for this annual celebration of local new music performed live. Open your ears wide and crack your wallet only slightly; the Cabaret – four nights, 14 performances, 11 different groups and bands – is the bargain of the year. Pay $10 per night or $25 for all four. Performers include Dean Magraw’s Red Planet, Patrick Harison and Josh Granowski, Renegade Ensemble, the Zacc Harris Group, the Nathan Hanson Saxophone Choir, and Zeitgeist, the new music chamber ensemble of four fine musicians: percussionists Heather Barringer and Patti Cudd, woodwind player Pat O’Keefe, and pianist Julie Sweet (stepping in for Shannon Wettstein, who’s on a leave of absence). FMI, schedule, and tickets here.

Thursday: Gallery Conversation at the Bell Museum. What’s the difference between a woodcut and a wood engraving? How are prints made from copper plates or lithographic stones? How did John J. Audubon make his fantastic bird prints? As part of the Bell’s exhibition “Audubon and the Art of Birds,” printmaker, book artist and educator Jody Williams leads a discussion of printing methods and shows examples of different printing plates, blocks and tools. 5:30 p.m. in the West Gallery. Free with museum admission. Go early, if you can, and see the show. The Bell owns a rare double-elephant folio edition of Audubon’s “Birds of America.” Thirty-three restored prints are now on display.

Courtesy of Big Picture Press

Peek inside two dozen of St. Paul’s grandest homes.

Thursday: “Great Houses of Summit Avenue and the Hill District” book launch at Common Good. Peek inside two dozen of St. Paul’s grandest homes – historic mansions designed by Clarence Johnson, Cass Gilbert, and many others. (The F. Scott Fitzgerald home is among them.) Architectural photographer Karen Melvin and her coauthors will be joined by many of the homeowners whose houses are featured. Garrison Keillor wrote the foreword. 7 p.m., free.

Thursday:Zagreb Saxophone Quartet and Lydia Artymiw at the Ted Mann. You can see award-winning pianist Artymiw when she performs with the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra on Nov. 14 and 15. And/or you can see her for free when she plays with the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet. Presented by the U of M School of Music, where Artymiw is on the faculty, the program will include music by Mozart and Shostakovich. 7:30 p.m. Seating is general admission.

Photo by Petronella J. Ytsma

“Mary T. and Lizzy K.” at the Park Square Theatre

Friday:“Mary T. and Lizzy K.” at the Park Square Theatre. This is closing weekend for writer/director Tazewell Thompson’s look at the close relationship between Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker, Lizzy Keckly, a freed slave. Park Square nabbed the regional premiere of a play that had its world premiere earlier this year at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and received the Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award. Part fact, part fiction, it moves back and forth in time, from the day of Lincoln’s assassination to a day 10 years later, when Mary Todd Lincoln has been institutionalized. It’s a talky play, and there were moments when we wished it had been a bit shorter, but the language is beautiful and the acting superb. Linda Kelsey is a mercurial yet sympathetic Mary Todd Lincoln, Sha Cage a powerful, purposeful Lizzy, and Stephen D’Ambrose an achingly human, bone-weary Lincoln. As Lizzy’s assistant, Ivy, Nike Kadri rises above the horrors her character has experienced. The costumes, borrowed from Arena Stage, are fabulous. Tickets are tight for Friday; if you can, try Saturday or Sunday.

Professional orchestras and sports teams are remarkably similar in their business operations and in labor relations. Orchestra management and sports management are in the same business, the difference being whether the players are holding a bat or a bassoon. In both industries, management scouts and hires talented players to perform difficult feats in such a compelling way that people pay for tickets to their events and fill concert halls and stadiums. In both industries, labor problems have caused enormous disruptions such as the one that has closed Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis for the last year.

Just as the first baseball union formed the Players’ League and tried to play its own schedule, the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have formed the Minnesota Orchestra Musicians to produce their own concerts. The “Players’ League” failed as the baseball players lacked capital and had the tendency to overpay themselves. The Minnesota Orchestra Musicians are following a similar path now and will learn about orchestra management’s importance.

Professional athletes and musicians start their careers early in life, either playing in Little League or in a school band. They both practice their skills the prescribed 10,000 hours to perfect the art. As they improve, they begin to stand out from their peers and are given privileges, receive adulation, and develop commensurate egos. Both players compete in countless try outs, are recruited, and attend special schools; The Eastman School and Julliard are the same as LSU and Alabama in this respect. Star at either and play later as a professional.

Players in both “sports” survive a rigorous elimination process where they are promoted over peers and then find themselves in the “Big Leagues.” They note the full audiences and revel in the applause. They understand that all of this is due to their unique talent, especially when they are the featured soloist playing Bach’s “Toccata & Fugue,” or quarterback starring in the Super Bowl. The audience is not cheering the Board of Directors are they? This sense of self leads to monumental labor conflicts which is the history of professional sports. The National Football League has adopted a salary cap/revenue sharing plan that lends itself to the orchestra setting, and should be applied to the Minnesota Orchestra.

The NFL system is based on a revenue metric and a percentage of revenue to be paid to the players. For the orchestra, the union and management would agree on the revenue attributable to the musicians — from tickets sold for orchestra events, sales of DVDs and other media, to t-shirts, and then agree on the percentage payable to the players — different percentages can be paid from tickets and DVDs. The allocation between the players can also be part of the agreement. Most of the elements of this plan are already in place. It is a matter of agreeing to the concept and then sitting down and working out the details.

I have been involved in labor relations for decades and recognize that this is the time for bold action by the orchestra board. Such bold action by the NFL created the balanced plan that benefits owners, players, and fans of that sport. By adopting such a plan, the Orchestra can look forward to long term labor peace and we concert goers can enjoy the wonderful music they create.

This post was written by Clark Griffith and originally published on the Clark Griffith Blog. Follow Clark on Twitter: @ccgpa.

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We’re living our own version of “Waiting for Godot,” the play in which nothing happens, except we call it the Minnesota Orchestra lockout. Over the weekend, both the Star Tribune and MPR reported that the latest attempt at talks between management and musicians – informal meetings by two representatives from each side, as opposed to the whole negotiating committees – had collapsed. Even the equable Orchestrate Excellence, the citizens’ group that takes the middle ground, is “profoundly discouraged.” Attorney Lee Henderson, part of SOS: Save Osmo, wants Minneapolis to cancel its lease with the MOA, and the Minnesota attorney general to take control of the orchestra’s endowment. Doug Kelley, a member of the management negotiating team and a participant in the latest talks with board member Nicky Carpenter and musicians Doug Wright and Tim Zavadil, believes the musicians are being used by the national union. Zavadil insists the musicians represent themselves, or they wouldn’t vote unanimously on contract proposals, as they have done. What about the money Marilyn Carlson Nelson raised this summer? It’s available until the end of the year. Is conductor Osmo Vänskä gone forever? Board members have met with him about a possible return. Correction: This item has been corrected; Doug Kelley is not currently on the MOA board. However, he has been involved in many past musicians' contract negotiations, and the MOA bylaws allow non-board member volunteers to serve on committees.

What’s the future of Orchestra Hall? The Strib’s resident satirist James Lileks pictures a CD player on a stool on stage. (Lileks, who regularly makes us laugh, for which we’re deeply appreciative, also keeps calling the lockout a strike. It is not a strike.) And so it goes, or doesn’t. Meanwhile, not many tickets remain for the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra’s next self-produced concerts this Thursday and Friday at the Ted Mann, with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting.

The 43-year-old Twin Cities chamber music ensemble The Musical Offering is so small it doesn’t have even one full-time staff person. Yet it recently won a significant grant from Google for making great use of the web. Someone there is savvy enough to realize that a website has to work on a desktop, tablet and smartphone; a recent survey found that just two of the top 25 orchestras in the nation have mobile-friendly sites. TMO’s emails have an open rate that’s twice the industry average. Lacking a ticket office (again, no staff), they use Brown Paper Tickets, a friendly, intuitive website that doesn’t gouge buyers with big fees. And its Facebook page keeps fans up-to-date. TMO will receive up to $10,000/month of Google’s AdWords service and a free suite of app software. Its next concert is Jan. 26 at Hamline’s Sundin Music Hall. FMI.

Photo by Michal Daniel

Daisy Werthen (Wendy Lehr) and Hoke Colburn (James Craven) in 'Driving Miss Daisy'

It begins with a car crash and ends with pumpkin pie. In between, an unlikely friendship forms. Set in Atlanta, spanning 25 years (1948-1973), “Driving Miss Daisy” is a straightforward, compact, linear play that draws you in gently and makes you care. Even if you know the story from the Oscar-winning film, watching it unfold on the Jungle’s stage is moving and satisfying. We couldn’t ask for a better cast – Jungle regular Wendy Lehr as sharp-tongued, set-in-her-ways Jewish widow Daisy Werthan; Charles Fraser as her go-getter son, Boolie; Penumbra company member James Craven as Daisy’s patient, steadfast chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn – or a warmer, more intimate version of Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Director Bain Boehlke also designed the set, which packs a lot into a small space: Daisy’s home, Boolie’s office, the car (four wooden office chairs and a steering column attached to the floor), changing scenery (Daisy’s yard, Atlanta’s streets, the Piggly Wiggly parking lot) viewed as projections through an arched doorway, and eventually a nursing home. The characters are strong and believable, real people living rather ordinary lives amid the enormity of the civil rights movement. The play is full of powerful moments: Craven’s first entrance onto the stage, his proud, purposeful walk a thing of beauty; Daisy’s judgmental fury when she thinks Hoke has stolen from her; the realization that Hoke is her best friend in the world. If “Driving Miss Daisy” leaves you cold, you must not have a heart. And if you start calling your mama a doodle, blame Uhry.

This Thursday, Nov. 14, is Give to the Max Day. Just five years old, this annual event has become the Black Friday of Minnesota nonprofits, charities and schools. The GiveMN website was launched in 2009 by the Minnesota Community Foundation and its partners. Since then, more than $75 million has been raised online. Almost 218,000 donors have used the site, and nearly 8,000 organizations have received donations. Minnesota holds the record for the biggest giving day in the world: $16.4 million on Give to the Max Day 2012. It’s a fast, easy and efficient way to support the organization of your choice. Do it if you can.

Have you read the “Harry Potter” books? Yes? No? Never mind. You’d have to live under a rock not to know who “Harry Potter” is and what a phenomenon J.K. Rowling’s epic series of books turned out to be – or do you not recall people camping outside of bookstores awaiting the release of book 6? Coming to the O’Shaughnessy Nov. 20 for seven shows: “Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience,” a parody by BBC television hosts Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, that condenses (or “pots”) all seven chunky novels into 70 minutes, with multiple costume changes, songs and silly props. A 2012 Olivier Award nominee for Best Entertainment & Family Show, it’s being hailed as a hit, a hoot, hilarious and awesome. Opens Wednesday, Nov. 20; final show Saturday, Nov. 23. FMI and tickets ($55-$25).

Courtesy of the O'Shaughnessy

Coming to the O’Shaughnessy Nov. 20 for seven shows: “Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience.”

For you, artists:1. Proposals for the second annual Creative City Challenge are due at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18. There’s a free info session today at noon in room 204AB on the second floor of the Minneapolis Convention Center. The Creative City Challenge is a competition for a $75,000 commission to create a summer-long installation at the Convention Center Plaza in 2014. 2. Northern Lights.mn has announced a call for the sixth round of Art(ists) on the Verge commissions. Five Minnesota-based emerging artists or groups will participate in an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program supported by the Jerome Foundation. Deadline Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. Information sessions in December and January. 3. Also from Northern Lights.mn, two calls for proposals for next year's Northern Spark, to be held June 14, 2014: one for projection projects,one for projects in any medium. The deadline for both is Jan. 13. Northern Spark returns to Minneapolis in 2014. 4. Eager theater beavers can apply for the 2014 Minnesota Fringe starting this Thursday, Nov. 14. Being first or early does not get you extra points or improve your chances in any way, since all Fringe events are chosen by lottery, but it does mean you can check that off your to-do list. 5.The Bedfellows Club is looking for new artists. Your art will become part of a roving art gallery and placed in people’s bedrooms. It will the first thing someone sees on waking, the last thing before sleep. A challenge to the exhibition model, and a way for people to live with art they might not be able to afford, this is a charmingly quirky idea. Email hirschjess@gmail.com. 6. The Walker Art Center and mnartists.org have launched a new Artist Pass program for local artists. Active mnartists.org members of all disciplines are eligible to apply for a $20 pass that includes unlimited free admission to the Walker galleries, discounts on select mnartist.org and Walker events and a subscription to the mnartists.org e-newsletter. FMI and application.

For you, arts admin types:1. The Minnesota State Arts Board has created a new position, Director of Research and Evaluation, and is looking for qualified candidates. Applications are due on or before Monday, Nov. 25. Here’s the job posting. 2. Minneapolis College of Art and Design needs a Fellowship and Gallery Program Coordinator. The part-time (30 hrs/week), benefits-eligible job starts in January. FMI (click Fellowship & Gallery Program Coordinator under Staff Opportunities).

Our picks for the week

Tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 12) at the Minnesota Historical Society: Poet Chris Martin has spent a month as writer-in-residence at the Minnesota Historical Society Gale Family Library, up to his elbows in collections of materials relating to the American Indians of the Upper Midwest, travel tales from the state’s earliest explorers, and works by lesser-known Minnesota authors. His residency is part of Coffee House Press’s Writers and Readers Library Residency Program. The author of “American Music” (Copper Canyon, 2007) and “Becoming Weather” (Coffee House Press, 2011), Martin will talk about his residency and present new work. 7 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Photo by John Whiting

Roy Hargrove

Tonight and tomorrow at the Dakota: Roy Hargrove Quintet. Last week the Dakota hosted a parade of top-tier jazz musicians: Lynne Arriale, Marcus Roberts and Patricia Barber. This week brings trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a highly respected, seriously swinging two-time Grammy winner who always leaves his audiences happy and wanting more. His stellar quintet includes Justin Robinson on saxophone, Sullivan Fortner on piano, Ameen Saleem on bass and Quincy Phillips on drums. Sets at 7 and 9 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($35/$25).

Wednesday at the Minneapolis Central Library: Bestselling author Amy Tan (“The Joy Luck Club”) reads from her first new published novel in almost 10 years. “The Valley of Amazement,” out this month, follows a mother and daughter, both courtesans in Shanghai, over 50 years and two continents. Doors at 6:15 p.m., program at 7. Free and open to the public. First come, first served.

Thursday at the Humphrey Center: Poet Marilyn Nelson reads in the Givens Foundation’s 10th Annual NOMMO African American Authors Series. Nelson is the author or translator of 15 books and five chapbooks, a two-time finalist for the National Book Award, and a winner of the prestigious Frost Medal and Newbery Honor, among many others. Her poems – about love, motherhood, African American history, faith, her childhood during the Civil Rights era, and more – are richly textured, rhythmic and accessible. 7 p.m. in the Cowles Auditorium. Free and open to the public. Reservations requested.

Thursday at the Amsterdam: An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss and Paul & Storm. To nerds, geeks, and fantasy fans, these three need no introduction. Patrick Rothfuss is the New York Times bestselling author of “The Name of the Wind” and “Wise Man’s Fear.” Paul Sabourin and Greg “Storm” DeCostanzo are famous for their nerdish original comedy music. Rothfuss will read, answer questions and tell stories; Paul and Storm will sing about nuns, chicken nuggets, video games and pirates. Doors at 6 p.m., program at 7. FMI and tickets ($18/$21).

First Avenue on Saturday night was a once-in-a-lifetime scene of celebration and generosity. A parade of bands and a big crowd came to honor Twin Cities concert promoter Sue McLean and benefit her 12-year-old daughter, Lilly. “American Idol” winner Phillip Phillips, who opened later that night for John Mayer at the Target Center, stopped by the VIP room just long enough to get his picture taken a zillion times. On the main stage, Molly Maher, Marc Perlman and Tim O’Reagan of the Jayhawks, Eric Hutchinson, Paul Metsa, Mick Sterling, the BoDeans, Soul Asylum, Rogue Valley, Haley Bonar and more made it a night to remember. If you’ve never heard Metsa and Patty Peterson sing “I Shall Be Released,” that was probably your only chance. Running over five hours, the whole affair was a heartfelt and rocking tribute to McLean, who died of cancer in May after a long career of bringing exceptional music to the Twin Cities. The silent auction remains open through Dec. 2. Here’s a photo set on Flickr, if you want to take a look.

MinnPost photo by Pamela Espeland

The crowd enjoyed a heartfelt and rocking tribute to McLean.

The Birchwood Café in Minneapolis will expand and remodel, upgrade its refrigeration and HVAC, and buy and serve more food from local farmers, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign that exceeded its funding goal. The much-lauded, crushingly popular yet casual Birchwood was an early leader in the local food movement in the Twin Cities, and one reason we’ve become such foodie towns. At the third annual Charlie Awards earlier this month, the Birchwood was named Outstanding Neighbor and its owner, Tracy Singleton, was awarded Community Hero. Birchwood’s Kickstarter goal was $100,000; with 980 backers, it raised $112,126. One of the perks offered for pledging at the $150 level was something we looked at longingly: Thanksgiving dinner for 8-12 delivered to your home. Two days before TG, that tops our Wish-We-Had-Done-That-But-We’re-Dumb-And-We-Didn’t list.

Lilly Schwartz

Lilly Schwartz is leaving the Minnesota Orchestra for a new position as associate producer at SFJAZZ in San Francisco. Schwartz has been the Orchestra’s director of pops and special projects since September 2006. She started the Jazz at Orchestra Hall series, brought in New Orleans trumpeter and bandleader Irvin Mayfield as the artistic director, formed a relationship with the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant a block away (often, after shows at Orchestra Hall, jazz headliners walked down Nicollet Mall for a late-night set at the Dakota), produced shows with Sarah Hicks, the orchestra’s principal conductor of pops, and worked closely with Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis on the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. Kernis resigned the same day as music director Osmo Vänskä. Schwartz starts her new job Dec. 16. Orchestra president and CEO Michael Henson praised Schwartz’s tenure here. “Over the last seven years,” he said in a statement Monday, “Lilly Schwartz has done a brilliant job in engaging new artists and producing new programming to broaden the Minnesota Orchestra’s pops and presentations series for audiences and to raise it to new levels of visibility … We will miss Lilly’s contributions greatly.”

Louise Erdrich has won an American Book Award for “The Round House,” her novel abut a vicious crime and a boy’s coming of age on a North Dakota reservation. Last November, “The Round House” won the National Book Award, and in April the Minnesota Book Award. A program of the Before Columbus Foundation, founded by author-poet-playwright Ishmael Reed, the American Book Awards honor diversity and promote multicultural literature.

Is mass government surveillance harming freedom of expression in the United States? According to a recent survey by PEN America, one in six writers has avoided writing or speaking on a topic they thought would subject them to surveillance, and another one in six has seriously considered doing so. Worried that the NSA is listening in – which we now know is not as paranoid or crazy as it once might have seemed – writers are self-censoring. Twenty-eight percent have curtailed or avoided social media activities; 24 percent have deliberately avoided certain topics in phone or email conversations. Writers are reluctant to research certain subjects and to communicate with sources or friends abroad for fear they will endanger their counterparts by doing so. These results and more are found in “Chilling Effects,” a report released by PEN American Center on Nov. 12 and based on a survey of 520 writers conducted by The FDR Group. One writer noted, “Even taking this survey makes me feel somewhat nervous.” Here’s the whole report. Read it and weep.

Chanhassen Dinner Theatres’ new owners (as of spring 2010) have bought the land under its sprawling complex from the theatres’ founding family, Bloomberg Companies. The financial details were not made public, but the purchase “reflects the increased levels of success we’re having at the theatre,” investor Jim Jensen said in a prepared statement. “Most importantly, it puts us in control of our future.” Meanwhile, MPR reported that the Capri Theater in north Minneapolis will expand into three neighboring properties, provided the Minneapolis City Council approves the sale of city land to the Plymouth Christian Youth Center, the Capri’s owner and operator, for $161,650. The former movie theater on West Broadway, where Prince played one of his first big concerts, was renovated in 2007 and has since become an anchor in the North Minneapolis community and draws audiences from around the metro. Next up at the Capri: “A Christmas Gift Concert” featuring Greta Oglesby, Thomasina Petrus, Regina Marie Williams and Sanford Moore. FMI and tickets ($20).

Courtesy of Brave New Workshop

“I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus” at Brave New Workshop

Brave New Workshop has mounted a mostly hilarious holiday show. Full of the topical references we love (a Comcast mention got one of the night’s biggest laughs), “I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus” begins with a jolly song about Santa’s two “beards” (one is Mrs. Claus) and gallops on through a series of sketches, loosely linked by cast member Andy Hilbrands as Morgan Freeman, who acts (sometimes) as narrator and also reads bits from “Fifty Shades of Grey.” There’s a bit about Santa’s reindeer and the reason Rudolph’s nose is red, a bit about OSD (Online Shopping Disorder), a bit about a creepy neighbor with a collection of Christmas trees, a bit about a nursing home, a bit about the NSA. The small, hard-working, fast-moving cast also includes Taj Ruler, Matt Erkel, Tom Reed, and Lauren Anderson, who could easily be one of the funniest people on the planet. The finale, a reprise of the BNW fave “12 Days of Christmas,” is a howler. Through Feb. 1. FMI and tickets ($26-$36, discounts available).

Our picks for the week, including Black Friday

Artscape is taking Friday off to clean up after the Thanksgiving dinner we could have let Birchwood Café prepare for us, if we weren’t such dunderheads.

Wednesday at the American Swedish Institute: After Work Wednesday. Stop by Party Central – sorry, we mean the American Swedish Institute, the venerable arts & cultural center and museum – for happy-hour drinks and food specials from FIKA, a tour of its decorated holiday rooms including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, and Mexico (yes, Mexico, that little-known Scandinavian country), and “The Dinner Party,” an original short play by Minneapolis playwright Lily Crooks that imagines a dinner table conversation among Ingrid Bergman, Edvard Munch, Carl Larsson (Sweden’s Norman Rockwell) and Icelandic poet Snorri Sturlusun. Showings at 6 and 7 p.m. in the ballroom of the Turnblad Mansion. It’s all included with museum admission. The ASI is open until 8 p.m. on Wednesdays. Can’t make it this Wednesday? There’s also Dec. 4, 11 and 18.

Courtesy of the American Swedish Institute

The Swedish Christmas room at the American Swedish Institute.

Black Friday: We would rather be keelhauled than go to a mall on Black Friday. But these alternatives sound like fun. 1) Head for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which open four hours earlier than usual – at the astonishingly non-museumish hour of 6 a.m. From 6 until 7, the newly redesigned Museum Shop will give away boxed note sets, posters, and other surprises while supplies last. Enjoy free coffee and a treat from Dogwood and Rustica until 10 a.m. Check out the Northern Grade pop-up market. Visit “The Audacious Eye” exhibition for free. Stay longer if you want; regular hours start at 10. 2) Visit the Mill City Museum or Minnesota History Center, both of which also open at 6 a.m. Both are offering themed giveaways to the first 200 adults and History Hound giveaways to the first 300 kids, plus live music, and all galleries are open. FMI. 3) If you must shop, consider your friendly neighborhood record store, which celebrates “Back to Black Friday” with limited-edition vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, box sets and trading cards.  Here’s a list of exclusive and first releases. (“Linus and Lucy” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio on 7" vinyl? Hmmmm…) And here’s where you can find a list of participating stores.

Friday at the St. Anthony Main Theatre: “The Girls in the Band.” If you missed this award-winning documentary when it came to the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival in 2012, here’s another chance. Judy Chaikin’s eye-opening, entertaining film tells the story of women trying to make it as jazz musicians, which is still pretty much a man’s world. Except for a brief, shining moment called the Swing Era, jazz has never been about stardom or celebrity, so even if you’re successful it’s an uphill battle. Chaikin travels chronologically from the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an interracial all-female band that traveled the South during Jim Crow, to pioneering jazz pianist and longtime NPR radio host Marian McPartland, who smiled when a clueless TV host called her “decorative,” and today’s accomplished women artists including Maria Schneider, Terri Lyne Carrington and Esperanza Spalding. Here’s the trailer. FMI and tickets. Through Dec. 5.

Friday and Saturday at the Artists’ Quarter: Pat Mallinger and the Bill Carrothers Trio. As the clock ticks down to the AQ’s closing January 1, owner Kenny Horst is bringing in some of his favorite headliners. Pianist Carrothers is one of the exceptional artists who play at the AQ (when he’s not in Europe) and nowhere else in the Twin Cities. In September, he spent a week at the Village Vanguard with the Dave King Trio. Saxophonist and Chicago resident Mallinger has shared the stage with Herbie Hancock, Ramsey Lewis, and other greats. 9 p.m., $15 at the door.

Friday through Sunday: “Denk Plays Mozart and Brahms.” Acclaimed pianist and newly minted MacArthur fellow Jeremy Denk is back for more music with the SPCO, performing Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25. (He played the Mozart two weeks ago at Carnegie Hall.) Denk recently recorded Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” and talked about them with NPR, if you want to read an interesting interview. We’ve been listening to his “Goldbergs” nonstop for the past week. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Ordway, 3 p.m. Sunday at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi. FMI and tickets.

Friday through Sunday at the Fitz:“Gulliver Unravels.” Master storyteller Kevin Kling and singer/songwriter Chastity Brown put their own spin on the classic tale by Jonathan Swift. Weaving in stories from Kevin’s life and songs from Chastity’s repertoire, directed by Theater Latte Da’s Peter Rothstein, this program is aimed at ages 9-99, so it’s a good family event for TG weekend. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. FMI and link to tickets (Ticketmaster).

All day Saturday at indie bookstores everywhere. Authors will become booksellers on Indies First day, a.k.a. Small Business Saturday. They’ll sign their own books, if you want, and try to hand-sell you other books they love. Nancy Carlson will be at Red Balloon in St. Paul, Andy Sturdevant at Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis, Benjamin Percy at Monkey See, Monkey Read in Northfield, Erin Hart at Valley Bookseller in Stillwater – you get the idea. You can check the map here or just show up at your favorite indie bookstore and be surprised.

Sunday: KFAI’s Brass Bash at the Amsterdam. Trumpets and trombones and tubas, oh my. Get brassed with three Twin Cities ensembles at this fundraising benefit for KFAI, Fresh Air Radio. The Jana Nyberg Group (with trumpeter Adam Meckler) starts, followed by the quintet Parham, Anderson, Schimke, Boettcher and Washington (which needs a shorter, snappier name pronto). The mighty Jack Brass Band closes out the night. 6 – 10 p.m., $10 suggested donation.

Next Tuesday (Dec. 3) at the Ritz:“Tastemakers.” Stephanie March and Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Mpls. St. Paul magazine co-host what’s sure to be a lively discussion of the local food biz. The panelists are Jacquie Berglund of Finnegans, Zoe Francois (“Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”), and sheep milk cheese crafter Jodi Ohlsen Read. Apparently they’re all steamed that a recent “Gods of Food” article in Time magazine didn’t list a single female chef, so expect a few comments on that. 6 p.m. FMI and tickets ($10). Includes appetizers, cocktail samplers and a cash bar. 

The Minnesota Orchestra has received its second Grammy nomination in two years for Best Orchestral Performance, this time for “Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4.” Last year’s Grammy nod was for “Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5.” Plans were for the Minnesota Orchestra to record “Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 6” in mid-September, continuing its series on the respected Swedish label BIS, but that didn’t happen because the musicians have been locked out since Oct. 1, 2012, in a historically long and bitter labor dispute. The cancellation of the September recording sessions, followed by the cancellation of two November concerts by the orchestra at Carnegie Hall, led to music director Osmo Vänskä’s resignation Oct. 1, and soon after to the cancellation of the orchestra’s 2015 residency at the BBC Proms. We apologize for our redundancy, but there’s no acceptable synonym for “cancellation.”

In his review for the Star Tribune, Larry Fuchsberg had high praise for Sibelius 1 & 4, which you might want to add to your Christmas list. He calls special attention to the “spellbinding account of its opening clarinet monologue” by Burt Hara, who left the orchestra in May for a position with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. MPR’s Luke Taylor has compiled a list, with descriptions, of the many distinguished recordings by the Orchestra and Vänskä, 11 in all. Sibelius 3 & 6 would have made it an even dozen.

Minnesota can claim still more Grammy connections. Composer/conductor and Windom native Maria Schneider’s “Winter Morning Walks” was nominated for three Grammys: Best Contemporary Classical Composition; Best Classical Vocal Solo, for renowned soprano and former SPCO artistic partner Dawn Upshaw’s performance on “Winter Morning Walks”; and Best Engineered Album, Classical (kudos to David Frost, Brian Losch and Tim Martyn). The SPCO is also featured on the album, performing Schneider’s “Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories” featuring Upshaw.

Meanwhile, the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have added a second concert with Vänskä to the reopening of Northrop Auditorium in May. The first, scheduled for Friday, May 2, sold out almost immediately. The second will take place Sunday, May 4, and 2 p.m. Tickets go on sale at noon next Monday, Dec. 16. FMI and link to tickets (not yet live). And the SPCO, which ended its own seven-month lockout on April 30, last Tuesday announced a balanced budget for fiscal year 2012-13 and a net surplus of over $280,000. That amount cuts an accumulated deficit of nearly $800,000 down to $512,000, which the SPCO plans to eliminate over the coming years through planned surpluses.

On the topic of money (for which there are several synonyms, some entertaining: scratch, dough, bread, loot, clams, moola, smackers), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) last week released a preliminary report on the impact of arts and culture on the U.S. economy. According to the new Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACPSA), the first federal effort to learn how many greenbacks the arts and cultural sector contributes to current-dollar gross domestic product (GDP), 3.2 percent of 2011’s GDP was attributable to arts and culture. Which doesn’t seem like much until you translate that into Benjamins: $504 billion.In contrast, BEA’s estimated value of the U.S. travel and tourism industry was 2.8 percent of GDP. Take that, travel and tourism.

Chedda and the arts is the focus of the next Policy and a Pint, co-presented by 89.3 the Current and the Citizens League. On Monday, Dec. 16, radio host Steve Seel and guests Gülgün Kayim (director of arts, culture, and the creative economy for the City of Mineapolis), Laura Zabel (executive director, Springboard for the Arts) and Peter Leggett (chair of St. Paul’s Cultural STAR board) will meet at the Varsityto talk about the connection between arts, culture and economic health. We’re telling you now because these events often sell out. Doors at 5:30 p.m., event at 6. $10; $5 students and Target employees with valid ID. Register here.

With libraries across the country slashing hours and staff due to budget cuts, it’s heartening to learn that the Hennepin County Library will add hours starting Jan. 5. Responding to patron requests and use trends, making hours between libraries more consistent (and schedules less confusing), 34 libraries will increase hours, three (Roosevelt, Southeast, Webber Park) will maintain hours, and four (Champlin, Maple Plain, Oxboro, Westonka) will reduce hours. In all, the library will add 249 open hours per week across its 41-library system. That’s a lot, actually. Here’s the full 2014 hours schedule.

The Jungle has extended “Driving Miss Daisy” through Dec. 29.We loved it when we saw it last month. FMI and tickets. To meet demand, the History Theatre has added a performance of its Andrews Sisters holiday USO show, “Christmas of Swing.” All WWII veterans are invited to attend for free. Now through Sunday, Dec. 22. FMI and tickets. 

Last week on “Top Chef,” Twin Cities chef Sara Johannes was told to pack her knives and go. She had a rough time during the “Restaurant Wars” episode and also the judges’ review, where she threw some attitude at Padma, but she can cook for us anytime. Plus she knows how to wear a head wrap. Johannes is executive chef at Shoyu, a Japanese noodle and sushi shop familiar mainly to travelers, since it’s at the MSP airport on the other side of the security checkpoints.

Courtesy of Bluewater Productions

Bluewater Productions has released a new 32-page comic
book about Prince.

Five diverse and worthy diversions featuring Minnesota musicians: 1) A song by saxophonist George Cartwright is included with the latest issue of the award-winning literary magazine Oxford American, shoulder-to-shoulder with songs by Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bessie Smith, Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris and other artists. The issue’s theme is Southern music, with a focus on songs about Tennessee. Cartwright’s contribution is “He Who’d Ask.” Listen here, then buy the current Oxford American at B&N or Common Good. 2) Vocalist Sophia Shorai sings Dylan’s eternally touching “Forever Young” for a Kohl’s holiday commercial. If you want more (we did, because it’s irresistible), she has released a full-length version, now available at cdbaby and iTunes. 3) Dessa gave a Tiny Desk Concert at NPRand sang three songs from her terrific new album, “Parts of Speech.” Watching a Tiny Desk Concert always makes us dream of inviting stars to perform in our similarly unspacious living room. 4) Bluewater Productions has released a new 32-page comic book about Prince. Written by Michael Frizell, with art by Ernesto Lovera, it’s what Prince fans want. Download from iTunes or order from Comic Flea Market.

Finally: 5) “Minnesota Beatle Project Volume 5” is now available. This annual compilation of Beatles songs covered by Minnesota musicians is a treat for music lovers and Beatles fans and a gift to kids: 100 percent of net proceeds support music education across Minnesota. Enjoy Dosh’s take on “Blue Jay Way,” the Greycoats’ “Nowhere Man,” the Suburbs’ “Taxman,” Actual Wolf’s “Your Mother Should Know,” and Sonny Knight & The Lakers’ “Day Tripper” while doing good for kids and music programs in our public schools. Quantities are limited, so get thee to Target, the Electric Fetus, or another record store. This is the last "Beatle Project" release; Vega Productions, the nonprofit behind the series, has a new idea up its sleeve for 2014.

Our picks for the week

Tonight at SubText: Jim Walsh presents “The Replacements: Washed Up Hair and Painted Shoes: The Photographic History.” A MinnPost contributor and author of the earlier “The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting: An Oral History,” Walsh shares his latest look back at the iconic Minnesota-based band. 7 p.m. FMI.

Wednesday at Bryant Lake Bowl: The Star Wars Holiday Special 35th Anniversary Spectacular! After devoting Friday’s Artscape to holiday events, we vowed privately to forego all such for today … and then we found this. A 1978 TV special set in the Star Wars galaxy and starring the film’s main cast, it was broadcast in its entirety only once, apparently because it’s such a train wreck. Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) once called it “the horrible Holiday Special that nobody talks about.” Now, of course, it’s a cult thing. Bring an unwrapped toy donation (for Toys for Tots) and get in free. 7 p.m. (doors at 6) and 10 p.m. (doors at 9:30).

Wednesday at select cinemas: the (London’s) West End production of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives.” Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor star. Go here, click the orange “Buy Tickets” button and enter your ZIP to find the nearest theater(s).

Thursday at the U: a winter light show designed by students at the College of Science and Engineering. A 3D sensory experience: lights synchronized to music composed and performed by students, plus a 22-foot lighted tree, an 8-foot snowman sign, and a big lighted M. Presented by the Tesla Works student group in the Civil Engineering Building Plaza, 500 Pillsbury Dr. SE, Minneapolis. Free and open to the public. At 5:30 p.m., 6, 6:30, and 7. Also Friday and Saturday.

Thursday at Pillsbury House Theatre: “3 Figure$” by Emily Zimmer. Part of Pillsbury House’s annual “Naked Stages” series featuring completely new, interdisciplinary work from artists with local, national and international credentials. Zimmer performs with Frank Theater, Open Eye Figure Theater, Children’s Theatre Company and more. Her play uses three characters to explore the financial collapse of 2008. OK, maybe not the cheeriest holiday fare, but it might keep you from overspending. Also in the series: Moheb Solimen’s “A Great Lakes Vista” and Zainab Musa’s “Habeas Corpus.” FMI and pick-your-price tickets here.

Many have offered opinions and insights concerning the value of the Minnesota Orchestra now mired in the unprecedented long-term lockout of the musicians, but something more can be learned by remembering and comparing the serious situation of another arts organization more than 40 years ago.

In the early 1970s, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts — MSFA, then the umbrella organization for both the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the adjacent Minneapolis College of Art and Design — undertook a massive building expansion project that was strongly advocated by key MSFA board members Atherton Bean and Charles Bell. With an expected cost of more than $30 million, $167 million in today's dollars, the sheer scale of the fund raising caused concern. At that time, for example, John Pillsbury told me his family had concerns about the huge project, although they finally went along with it.

I was active then in a group of artists, composers and authors that publicly criticized the project; idealistically we urged that money be set aside for an innovative effort to help artists. While we would have been pleasantly surprised if Bean and his MSFA peers had altered course, we certainly shone a spotlight on the tendency for elite boards to prefer raising big money for arts building projects — the "edifice complex"— rather than for actual arts activities. But MSFA risked serious disaster with its oversize project. Several years later, a former MSFA official pulled me aside at a social gathering and said, "You don't know how right you were." When I asked what that meant, the insider explained, "They almost defaulted on their bonds!" Had that occurred, the Institute's fund-raising capability would have taken a grievous hit, and because the organization does not own the buildings, the art collection would have been jeopardized. Bad management, no doubt, though not ill-intended.

Compare what has happened in the case of the Minnesota Orchestral Association (MOA) after its board was captured by bank executives Richard Davis and Jon Campbell, who pushed MOA into an expensive renovation of Orchestra Hall during a time of recession while neglecting the all-important endowment fund that exists to help pay the musicians. MOA's report filed in July of this year with the Internal Revenue Service stated the organization's mission or most significant activity to be "A Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, internationally recognized for its artistic excellence" and for its "distinguished performances around the world, award-winning recordings, radio broadcasts and educational programs, and a commitment to building the repertoire of the future, " etc, etc. Elsewhere, however, the MOA board clarified its new intentions by removing "orchestra" from the corporate mission statement and designating MOA a mere operator of Orchestra Hall as a center for unspecified performances.

Degrading the operational asset

While they raised big money, acknowledged in the IRS report as "significant increases in public support" related to "renovating Orchestra Hall" and "raising support to fund the cost of the renovation," the bankers and their allies publicly complained that in their view the community could not afford an orchestra at the present level, and they let the endowment erode. As with the MSFA example, bad management, but here with ill intent, to degrade the renowned operational asset.

During the 1970s period when MSFA plunged ahead with massive construction, the museum employees began organizing because they had unresolved work problems. MSFA's board reacted by spending considerable money on legal fees to try to fend off unionization. One experienced labor contact said it had been years since he'd seen such extreme managerial truculence. But the Minneapolis Institute of Arts did become only the second major U.S. art museum to unionize. Now, these many years later, both management and labor describe relations there as reasonable.

In contrast, MOA's relations with the musicians plummeted to an all-time low as if on cue, just before renovation began on the hall. The board proposed a hefty cut in musicians' pay, and perhaps even more significantly, more than 200 changes in the collective-bargaining agreement. Besides its provisions concerning pay and benefits, the union contract provides protections from unreasonable working conditions and is the cumulative result of many years of good-faith negotiations.

Faced with such an extreme retrenchment, the musicians predictably rejected the proposal, and management locked them out. Even the involvement of a noted mediator, former Sen. George Mitchell, didn't narrow the gap between the two sides. Formerly such staunch and musically minded civic leaders as Elbert Carpenter, Judson Bemis, John Pillsbury, Kenneth Dayton and many others would have never let matters come to this. Gone are the early days of the Evergreen Club when business leaders and musicians collaborated to put the orchestra on a firm footing. Campbell and Davis are of a different breed.

It appears that MOA may have risked disaster by planning to lock out the musicians through making an unreasonable and likely to be rejected proposal, thus saving money that would have gone to musicians' salaries and rent for use of the Convention Center as an interim concert venue. But now the hall renovation is done, and the musicians continue to hold firm, citing their desire to keep the orchestra's status high by maintaining work standards comparable to those of other top-rated orchestras.

Planned or not, disaster arrived

Whether planned or not, MOA's position has resulted in disaster. Esteemed music director Osmo Vänskä resigned, and a number of key players have gone elsewhere. So far, MOA has not defaulted on bond payments or failed to pay bills, but its fund-raising capabilities must have suffered a heavy self-inflicted blow. And it may have breached trust with those who previously donated specifically to fund musicians, if MOA has spent such income during the lockout. Why would anyone gladly donate money to such a financially mismanaged organization? (Not to delve into the management's deficiencies in audience development and other areas!)

Aside from the annual high-society "Symphony Ball," the renovated hall has stood largely empty except for an event by the politically conservative Center of the American Experiment on right-to-work laws: in your face, union! Of course the artistic status of a renowned art museum such as the Institute of Arts does not depend on unionization, but it's highly unlikely that any first-rate U.S. symphony orchestra would maintain top quality without an effective union and good labor contract. The finest musicians wouldn't want to join a "right to work" orchestra.

A final point of comparison centers on public subsidy and finances. At the time of its gargantuan expansion, MSFA approached the Legislature for an increase in the "Park Museum Fund," its means of support by a direct levy on Hennepin County property based on statutory authority dating back to 1911. The Legislature complied, and to this day the rate remains at .00846 percent of market value. Few seem aware of this unique subsidy, which currently nets the museum more than $10 million per year. MOA got a $14 million bonding grant for the hall renovation, but unlike the Institute it gets no steady operating support from a tax levy. Legislators might consider a comparable or more broadly based measure for the orchestra. (Of course, the Institute generally offers free admission, and that cannot be the usual procedure for the orchestra.) There would have to be changes in MOA governance.

And changes in governance are needed in any case, because it appears that for the orchestra to survive in recognizable form, either the musicians must struggle to operate as a new entity divorced from MOA or else Jon Campbell, Richard Davis and their allies must resign from the MOA board in order for MOA to restore its fund raising ability, amplify the endowment and resolve the lockout.

David Markle, of Minneapolis, is a writer and acoustical designer.

WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?

If you're interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, email Susan Albright at salbright@minnpost.com.)

Artscape, like the rest of MinnPost, is taking a holiday break. We’ll return Jan. 3 with our first look at arts-related news and events for 2014, a year that once seemed impossibly far in the future, yet here it comes, full speed ahead. In the interim, we’ll post news and picks daily on Artscape’s facebook page, so now is a good time to like that if you haven’t already. Or you can follow us on Twitter.

Our New Year’s resolutions: to continue casting a wide net over arts and culture in the Twin Cities and beyond, and to keep you informed of fun, interesting, entertaining, meaningful and provocative goings-on you might not learn about anywhere else.

Our New Year’s wishes: that the grueling, exhausting, frustrating, maddening and profoundly saddening lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra musicians will end; that musicians and management will set aside months of hostility, anger and mistrust and reach an agreement that allows for dignity all around; that our newly renovated Orchestra Hall, now about as useful as Block E, will come to life once more with music; and that New Yorker music critic Alex Ross can start writing nice things about us again, instead of things like this: “The Medal of Musical Valor goes to the Minnesota Orchestra Musicians, who turned down what many considered an acceptable offer in the name of preserving their dignity. In an unprecedented repeat performance, the Turkey of the Year Award goes once again to the Minnesota Orchestral Association, which, it seems to me, has no business running a lemonade stand, much less a symphony orchestra.” Yee-ouch.

A few picks for the next two weeks:

Tonight (Friday, Dec. 20) and tomorrow at the Artists’ Quarter: David Hazeltine and Eric Alexander. Two extraordinary New York-based jazz musicians with strong ties to the St. Paul jazz club and an avid fan base here, pianist Hazeltine and saxophonist Alexander will fill both nights with swing, artistry, and joy. Hear them one last time at the AQ, which closes Jan. 1 after the final New Year’s Eve party. 9 p.m., $20 at the door.

Photo by John Abbott

David Hazeltine plays the Artists Quarter Friday and Saturday.

Sunday and Monday, Dec. 22 and 23, at the Dakota: Karrin Allyson’s Yuletide Hideaway. Another New York-based artist with a devoted local following, Allyson has one of those instantly recognizable voices, immense personal charm, piano and bandleading skills, and a brand-new Christmas album we like very much. 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20-$35).

Sunday, Dec. 29, at the Dakota: The Bad Plus perform “The Rite of Spring.” Stravinsky’s rule-breaking, riot-causing, incalculably influential masterpiece, written for full orchestra, played by three iconoclastic jazz musicians. We saw this at the former Loring Theater in 2011 and it was massively exciting. The Bad Plus is in residence at the Dakota starting Dec. 26. 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. FMI and tickets ($40).

Happy holidays, everyone.

Part of a series of first-person accounts relating to news events of 2013.

Dan Turpening is an accordionist, accordion teacher and accordion repairperson. He also fixes cars, house sits, dog sits and does light carpentry. He would love to learn bricklaying and roofing because “it’s empowering to have skills like that.” He has a great laugh and a dear old beagle named Daisy.

You might have seen Turpening play accordion around the lakes, at a farmers market, at a party or wedding or puppet show. If you’ve attended Minnesota Orchestra concerts at Orchestra Hall and come in through the skyway, you’ve seen him there. Patrons know him as “the accordion guy”; over the years he has become an integral part of their concert-going experience.

With the lockout of the orchestra's musicians now well into its second year, Turpening shares memories, opinions, and hopes for the future.

I’m 41 now, and I started playing before and after concerts when I was 27 or 28, when Eiji Oue was music director. I love creating an atmosphere and adding music, and I’m always on the lookout for good spots to play. I was walking in the skyway one night and saw a concert let out and thought, “Ah.” Since then, I’ve played every concert I can, when I don’t have another gig.

I wish I had gone to more concerts. Over the years, a lot of people gave me free tickets – people walking past, musicians, people who worked in the box office. Often I didn’t use them because during the break I’d go to the Caribou across the street and get some work done. I’d ask the ushers when the concert would be over or check the website so I’d catch the crowd coming out. Sometimes I’d screw up and you’d see me running across the street with my accordion.

Musicians aren’t supposed to play in the skyways. I’ve been able to play in that little area because the orchestra sort of runs the section leading right into the hall. The board didn’t want me there, but the musicians stuck up for me. A musician came up to me a few years ago and told me someone on the board said, “We should get rid of that accordion player in the hallway.” The musicians leapt to my rescue and said, “Don’t you dare.”

MinnPost photo by John WhitingDan Turpening: "I’d ask the ushers when the concert would be over or check the website so I’d catch the crowd coming out."

It adds a lot of life to have musicians up there. It adds security, because we’re up there keeping an eye on stuff and security can’t be everywhere. The city says they want to encourage the arts. Then they should encourage the arts and let artists work.

Sad things have happened. I’ve gotten to know a lot of people over the years – really sweet people who used to go to hear the orchestra and loved it. On more than a few occasions, someone would come by and say, “My husband passed away,” or “My friend passed away.” I’ve seen them all so many times that I can still see them in my mind.

When you go to an orchestra concert, you see a lot of gray hairs. A lot of these people are at the tail end of their lives, and seeing the orchestra is something they really enjoy, and now they can’t do that.

The concerts I loved were the ones where they explained things in the beginning – the “Inside the Classics” concerts. Both [Sarah Hicks and Sam Bergman] were so good at explaining the music and making it fun. The last concert I saw was the one at the Convention Center just before the lockout. The sound was terrible. The back of the concert hall is this giant, cavernous space stretching up into oblivion, and the sound was going way up there and floating around. I thought – are they trying to discourage people from coming? They had to have known that the sound wasn’t up to par.

Not to choose sides [here Turpening laughs], but I wish either the musicians could go out on their own and captain their own boat, or someone could solve this. It seems like the board doesn’t want to divulge their numbers. Maybe what they’ve offered [the musicians] really is all they can afford, but we don’t know that. I hope that whatever they do, they make the right decisions on how to encourage more young people to come. I hope that Orchestra Hall doesn’t just become some dinosaur.

MinnPost photo by John WhitingDaisy

A grassroots advocacy group backing the locked-out Minnesota Orchestra musicians is contending that orchestra management is in default of its lease for Orchestra Hall—and the group is urging city leaders to terminate the agreement.

The Minnesota Orchestral Association (MOA), which serves as the orchestra's management organization, operates Orchestra Hall, which recently underwent a $52 million renovation. Under the terms of its lease, the organization is required to show how the facility is being used to promote the arts in Minneapolis.

In early December, the MOA filed a report with the city of Minneapolis. In its report, the MOA said it is in compliance with the terms of the lease with the city, which owns Orchestra Hall and facilitated $14 million in state bonding for the facility. After the MOA filed its report, the Star Tribune indicated that it would be difficult for the city to take the hall back from the MOA.

Still, grassroots organization Save Our Symphony Minnesota (SOS) sent a letter this week to city leaders, contending that MOA is in default and requesting that the lease be terminated.

The letter was addressed to Minneapolis Community Planning & Economic Development (CPED) Executive Director Jeremy Hanson Willis, and it was also sent to City Attorney Susan Segal and Betsy Hodges, who was sworn in Thursday as Minneapolis’ new mayor.

A city spokesperson told Twin Cities Business on Thursday afternoon that he was unaware of any letter from the SOS. (The SOS said, however, that its letter was sent Tuesday, and it was emailed as well.)

The spokesman said that the City of Minneapolis continues to review the report that MOA submitted last month, adding that the lease agreement gives the city 45 days after receiving the document to determine whether MOA is in compliance with the lease. "We expect to have a determination within that 45-days window," he said.

A spokesperson for orchestra management, meanwhile, said in a Thursday evening email to Twin Cities Business that the SOS letter "fails to consider additional information and financial detail" that orchestra management provided to the city and state leading up to the signing of the lease in 2012. "The orchestra fully disclosed the financial position of the organization for the city and state, including the need to reduce endowment draws and restructure salary and benefits expense," the MOA said.

The lease

In its letter, the SOS cites the lease, saying that the MOA would be in default if all information it previously submitted to the State of Minnesota was not “true, complete, and correct . . . in all material respects.”

The SOS then cites a December 10 letter in which 10 state legislators reportedly accused MOA leaders of mismanagement, saying they “manipulated financial results in a deliberate deception of the public, first to gain public funding for Orchestra Hall and then to justify locking out the musicians for well over a year.”

The MOA has reportedly already responded to that accusation, saying that the Legislative Auditor already discredited those allegations. But the SOS claims that the auditor actually “substantiated” such accusations.

In other words, the SOS claims that the MOA failed to provide complete financial information — in part because leaders allegedly did not tell the state about concerns regarding the organization’s financial condition — and should thus be found in default of its lease. The letter also suggests that donations made to the orchestra have formed a charitable trust, with MOA as the trustee and Orchestra Hall being an asset of that trust.

“With the termination of the lease, the City of Minneapolis will become the successor trustee with the responsibility to use Orchestra Hall for the purpose intended by the donors,” the SOS wrote in its letter.

In its statement to Twin Cities Business, the MOA refuted the SOS' claims: "Our attorneys advise that the charitable trust cases cited in the letter don’t affect the terms of the MOA lease. The lease expressly provides for reimbursement of a portion of the building costs paid for by MOA if the lease terminates under certain circumstances. MOA would comply with all donor restrictions applicable to any reimbursed funds."

Read the full SOS document — which also includes a copy of the legislators’ letter to MOA and the report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor — here.

Musicians keep playing

Since orchestra management locked out musicians in late 2012, the two sides have been at an impasse regarding labor contracts for players, as the organization attempts to reduce its budget deficit.

In October, on the one-year anniversary of the musician lockout, Osmo Vänskä resigned from his role as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra.

Last month, the MOA released its annual report, which showed a $1.1 million operating loss, compared to the prior year’s $6 million deficit.

And in mid-December, the orchestra’s musicians said they would go it alone, with plans to put on at least 10 performances in a self-produced winter/spring season.

The Star Tribune pointed out that, in addition to performing music, the musicians are handling creating concert programs, securing guest soloists, renting halls, scheduling rehearsals, and selling tickets.

This article is reprinted in partnership with Twin Cities Business.

It appears that the long lockout of the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra may be on the verge of ending — or at least reaching another significant turning point.

A memo obtained by MinnPost — sent last week to board members from Minnesota Orchestral Association leadership — indicated that members of the board are planning to meet Tuesday to vote on a possible tentative agreement with musicians.

It said in part: "At this meeting we will discuss and hold a confidential vote on a settlement with the musicians, which was tentatively reached Tuesday night following intensive and lengthy negotiations. You may join in person or via phone; location is being finalized, but we wanted to let you know as soon as possible so you can get it on your calendars."

Neither MOA management nor musicians have responded to repeated queries over several days about whether a settlement is in the works, or whether musicians have yet voted on any deal.

But the memo to the board is evidence that an end to the lockout, which began 474 days ago (Oct. 1, 2012) may be nearing an end. The memo was signed by Michael Henson, the MOA’s  chief executive officer, as well as board chairman Jon Campbell and former board chair Richard Davis, who has headed negotiations.

Silence around the lockout in the last few days has been greater than usual. No details of a tentative settlement — if one exists — have been leaked. Nor is any information available at this time about the fates of two key figures, Michael Henson, and conductor Osmo Vänskä. 

Henson has been a lightning rod in these negotiations from the beginning. Some question whether the MOA could regain trust of the musicians and those who empathize with them if Henson remains at the helm.

Meantime, Vänskä, the highly regarded conductor, has been considered one of the casualties of the lockout. He resigned his position on Oct. 1.

But Vänskä, who is credited with building the reputation of the orchestra to elite status, remains in the area. He is scheduled to conduct the orchestra at the May grand opening of the renovated Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus.

There are reasons, beyond the memo, to believe the lockout could be reaching an end.

Political pressure, especially from the city of Minneapolis, which is involved in a complex lease arrangement with the MOA, could ratchet up significantly later this week. Under terms of the lease, a key deadline arrives Thursday.

That deadline requires the city’s Community Planning and Economic Development Department to give a thumbs up or down on whether the MOA has fulfilled — and will fulfill — its public obligations required when the MOA received state bonding money for the remodeling of Orchestra Hall.

A “thumbs up” on the MOA report would mean Community Planning would be, more or less, a  rubber-stamp process in which the city would approve the MOA’s operation and file a report with the state that would allow the MOA to continue business as usual.

But a “thumbs down” on the MOA’s report would mean the Community Planning Department would send a report to the city council and the state. That could begin the process of terminating the MOA’s lease. (Depending on whom you talk to, lease termination could prove costly and complex for the city — or not.)

Members of one organization, Save Our Symphony Minnesota, have sent a letter to the city attorney arguing that the MOA is in breach of its lease.

Certainly, political pressure could be a bigger factor than it has been throughout the lockout.

There are other, smaller hints that a settlement could be near.

For example, at the musicians' two Mozart Requiem concerts last weekend, there was no mention of the lockout from the stage, as usually has occurred just after intermission at these concerts.

And on the musicians' website, tickets for a Feb. 20 concert at the Ted Mann Concert Hall initially were to have gone on sale Monday. That site now says there will be an announcement “soon” as to when those tickets will be on sale.

Those who hold on to hopes that a settlement is near are hopeful that means the Feb. 20 concert could actually be held in long-empty Orchestra Hall.

Michelle Hummer’s 474-day nightmare came to an end Tuesday evening. As the general manager of MASA, a Mexican eatery located down the street from the Minnesota Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis, she watched the restaurant suffer “significant” losses as the performance hall sat dark for more than a year during a historic lockout.

But news broke that musicians and the Minnesota Orchestral Association had finally reached an agreement and ratified a three-year contract that kicks in Feb. 1. With concerts likely to start back up shortly after that, Hummer says she can “already feel the life back in the restaurant.”

“We feel like we can look across the street and have hope,” she said. “It’s nice knowing we are going to have guests who aren’t just protesters.”

Losses

From cancellation of '12-13 Orchestra season

Convention center

$900k

Parking

$400k

Dining

$1.7M

Total losses

$2.9M

Estimates provided by the City of Minneapolis [PDF].

Ticket icon by Monika Ciapala from The Noun Project. Theater icon by Haridass from The Noun Project. Restaurant icon by Federico Panzano from The Noun Project.

Hotels, restaurants and other businesses near Orchestra Hall are thrilled to see the end of the lockout, a drawn-out conflict that had a ripple effect throughout the neighborhood. The city of Minneapolis estimates it lost $2.9 million in parking, dining and other business during the suspended 2013 orchestra season. That includes about $414,000 in parking fees – an Orchestra Hall attendee pays an average of $10 to park during a performance in nearby ramps – and nearly $900,000 in anticipated food and beverage rental at the Minneapolis Convention Center down the street.

For Minneapolis restaurants like MASA, the toll was high. Minneapolis finance officials estimate city restaurants lost $1.7 million in dining revenues for the season.

The Minnesota Orchestra’s own research says about half of people who attend a performance also dine in downtown Minneapolis. About 30 percent of Orchestra Hall patrons attend matinee performances and spend an average of about $40 at a restaurant. Those attending an evening show at the hall, which is an overwhelming majority of visitors, spend an average of $80 an evening, according to the city.

'Huge relief'

“It’s a huge relief to have this behind us,” said Downtown Council CEO Steve Cramer, who said downtown businesses were anxious to see the lockout end. “Orchestra Hall is a statewide asset but they play in downtown Minneapolis. The orchestra was clearly one of those unique experiences in downtown that you can’t find anywhere else, and it’s just great to see the lights go back on.”

During the lockout, Hummer’s restaurant had to adapt. Staff was cut back to save costs and the restaurant introduced new date night specials and happy hour deals. They took to social media to spread the word and targeted nearby businesses to increase traffic.  

“You are operating with the promise that if you just hold on tight a little longer it will eventually open up again. Orchestra Hall is really the heartbeat of 11th Avenue and Nicollet,” Hummer said. “You take the heartbeat out of an intersection like that and everything is different. The traffic is different; the customers are different. You have to think outside of the box.”

Vince Vito, the director of sales and marketing at the nearby Hyatt Regency Minneapolis Hotel, says there’s no other place like Orchestra Hall in the entire state of Minnesota, and many people visit from far-flung regions of the state or from out of state and spend the night in Minneapolis.

“When you think about orchestras, it’s kind of a status thing for the downtown area and cities in general,” Vito said. “It’s going to be a positive thing for the hotel and it’s another shot in the arm for downtown.”

Target was only a facet of a larger scam?Matt Sepic at MPR says:“The security breach that hit Target Corp. during the holiday season appears to have been part of a broader and highly sophisticated scam that potentially affected a large number of retailers, according to a report published by a global cyber intelligence firm that works with the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. … Russian words were found in one of the variants of the virus, and parts of the malware were developed by a Russian criminal, said Tiffany Jones, a senior vice president at iSight Partners. ‘That does not in any shape or form indicate or show attribution that the attack or the operation was Russian in origin,’ said Jones.” Nor does it indicate that it wasn't, right?

Traffic deaths continue to decline in Minnesota. The AP says:“Preliminary reports from the Department of Public Safety show the number of traffic fatalities on Minnesota roads decreased slightly in 2013. DPS's Office of Traffic Safety says preliminary data shows there were 375 traffic fatalities in Minnesota last year. Once all the data is in, that number is projected to rise to about 385. That's compared with 395 traffic fatalities for 2012. Officials say the number of traffic-related deaths have declined 34 percent since 2004, when there were 567 deaths on Minnesota roads.”

It’s never good to be poor. In the Strib, Chris Serres writes:“Brittannea Stevenson felt like she had ‘won the lottery’ on the day she qualified for federal rental assistance after a two-year wait. A cashier at a Mankato Wal-Mart, Stevenson imagined finally buying her first car and a new pair of work shoes. She spent 60 grueling days scouring the North Mankato area, by public transit and taxi, for an affordable apartment and a landlord willing to accept her rental voucher, which would cover two-thirds of her rent. But her search ended quite unexpectedly two weeks before Christmas, when her unused voucher was revoked because of budget cuts enacted by Congress last year.”

In the Orchestra settlement aftermath, Russell Platt of the New Yorker writes:“Perhaps the possibility that the city of Minneapolis would take back the free lease on Orchestra Hall that it gives to the Minnesota Orchestral Association might have sped things up a bit. (The vigilant Doug Grow, of MinnPost, saw a few green shoots sprout up in recent days.) … Classical music is a key part of the Western civilization that conservatives so ardently claim to believe in; in its thousand-year history, it has never paid its own way. The amount of funding that the good and the great — the church, the aristocracy, government, corporations, and private donors — have given to the art form’s economy has fluctuated over the centuries, and in different societies, and it will continue to do so in modern, capitalist America.”

In the Supreme Court face-off over the Vikings stadium, Patrick Condon of the AP says: “Plaintiff Doug Mann ‘appears to be a serial litigant, determined to keep asserting meritless claims until this Court, the final arbiter of Minnesota law, definitely disposes of those claims,’ stated a legal memorandum from the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority. ‘Allowing Petitioners to continue to disrupt, delay and thread the Stadium Project ... by endless litigation does not further justice.’. … David Tilsen, a former Minneapolis school board candidate and co-plaintiff, filed a brief arguing that state officials should not have started spending state money on the project before financing questions were settled.”

Fighting over the really big stuff …WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler reports: “Minnesota’s independent state auditor said Thursday that Gov. Mark Dayton broke a law when he took a political trip with a campaign staffer on the state-owned plane. … The problem, according the audit report, is that he improperly brought along his campaign manager — a use of state resources for political purposes.”

Meanwhile … Rachel Stassen-Berger of the Strib says: “When Gov. Mark Dayton contracted with prominent attorney David Lillehaug in 2011 to handle the legal issues arising out of the state government shutdown, the governor's office said Lillehaug's work would be pro bono. The news release announcing the contract defined pro bono as ‘without cost to the state.’ But after that July shutdown ended, the governor agreed to change the contract with Lillehaug. ‘In August 2011, the Governor signed an amendment that changed the engagement from pro bono to billable services,’ a report from the state's Legislative Auditor said on Thursday. ‘The office paid the firm about $77,000 for those services’."

A gilded reputation that was more like gold spray paint … . Dave Shaffer of the Strib reports:“One of Minnesota’s legendary business success stories underwent a major revision Thursday at the criminal trial of businessman ­Robert Walker. Walker, the founder of Select Comfort Corp. in the late 1980s, is accused of cheating investors in an energy company he ran from 2001 to 2011. Along the way, Walker touted to potential investors in the now-defunct Bixby Energy Systems his executive credentials at the Minnesota-based bed company. But a retired investment banker testified in U.S. District Court in St. Paul that Walker brought Select Comfort close to bankruptcy by 1991, and was forced to step down as CEO as a condition for new investment.”

Thanks to Sally Jo Sorensen for tipping me to this one … Julie Buntjer of the Worthington Daily Globe says: “A pair of Worthington High School seniors will be able to attend prom this spring with their same-sex partners, WHS Principal Paul Karelis said Tuesday. … Stephanie Romero and Randy Junker collected more than 100 signatures in just a few hours, and said students, for the most part, were supportive. Some wouldn’t sign the petition due to religious beliefs, and the teens said that was OK. … School officials say there’s never been a written rule to discourage same-sex couples from attending prom.” Some things are getting better faster than others.

The 15-month lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra’s musicians has finally ended, and soon we’ll be able to hear our great orchestra play in its own newly spiffed-up home. But first, a sobering reminder of the human costs of a bitter dispute that started off worse than it needed to and lasted longer than it should have.

We’ve already reported on the number of musicians who resigned or took leaves of absence during the lockout: 15 in all, most recently Tim Zavadil, clarinet, who took a one-year position with the St. Louis Symphony while continuing to serve as a negotiator for the musicians. Gina DeBello, Yun-Ting Lee and Stephanie Arado resigned, as did Sarah Kwak, Vali Phillips, Matt Young and Mina Fisher. Peter McGuire, Thomas Turner, Ken Freed, Burt Hara, David Pharris, Robert Dorer and Michael Gast are all on leave; they may return or resign when their leaves end. While the new contract stipulates a full complement of 95 musicians, there are now 77, and seven are on leave, making 70 who will be performing regularly with the Minnesota Orchestra when concerts resume in February. (Several musicians resigned or retired shortly before the lockout began; their positions remain vacant.)

But the musicians weren’t the only ones who lost colleagues and friends. On May 9, 2012, shortly before ending the 2012 season and breaking ground for the $50 million renovation of Orchestra Hall, the Minnesota Orchestral Association eliminated nine full-time and seven part-time positions. During the 488 days of the lockout, 18 more members of the MOA’s management and administration either retired or resigned. They are:

1. John Swanson, executive assistant to Michael Henson (retired; his position was filled by new hire Julie Stemmler)
2. Julie Haight-Curran, orchestra personnel manager (retired)
3. Leah Mohling, associate orchestra personnel manager (resigned)
4. Lilly Schwartz, director of pops and special projects (resigned; now with SFJAZZ))
5. Nate Boutang, rental and events manager (resigned; his position was filled by Scott Feldman, who holds the new title of event and facility sales manager)
6. Heidi A. Droegemueller, director of development and individual giving (resigned; now vice president of development for Caringbridge)
7. Laura Nichols-Endres, director of foundation and government relations (resigned; now with Minnesota Children’s Museum; her position was filled by Anna M. Gram, former manager of corporate relations)
8. Clayton Smith, grants coordinator  (resigned; now with Minnesota Children’s Museum)
9. Amy Braford Whittey, manager of corporate relations (resigned; now at HGA Architects)
10. Britany Bleistein, manager of individual giving (resigned; now with Fort Worth Symphony in Texas)
11. Jim Bartsch, director of educational activities (resigned; returned to teaching)
12. Sarah Tengblad, special events coordinator (resigned; now with Auction Harmony)
13. Timothy Eickholt, stage manager (retired)
14. Terry Tilley, audio engineer (retired)
15. Ronald J. Foster-Smith, marketing manager (resigned; now at Cal Performances, UC Berkeley)
16. Julie Ann Gramke, marketing manager (resigned; now with UnitedHealth Group)
17. Nicholas Kimpton, manager of database marketing and online communications (resigned; now with another nonprofit)
18. Bethany Zenner, marketing coordinator (resigned)

Among these are several key positions: both orchestra personnel managers, the director of pops and special projects, the manager of corporate relations, the development director, the education director, the marketing manager, the director of online communications, the stage manager, the sound man.

At an orchestra concert, an open position doesn’t mean an empty chair on stage. It’s filled by a substitute player. But who can step in for Julie Haight-Curran, the orchestra personnel manager who retired in December, after more than a year of no orchestra personnel to manage? The Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra played last weekend’s concerts at the Ted Mann in tribute to her. “Tonight, we’d like to honor a person whose importance to us cannot be overstated,” cellist Marcia Peck told the sold-out crowd. “She’s been with us since 1979 … Behind the scenes, we had a true artist, helping us and working her tail off to help us make each concert the best it can be. She knows us better than anyone. She can recite births, deaths, marriages. She knows every time our children were sent home from school, or whenever someone had to schedule a colonoscopy. I guess you could say she knows us inside and out … No one has served the orchestra with more heart.”

The grassroots organization Save Our Symphony Minnesota (SOSMN), which has worked tirelessly to end the lockout since its launch in late August of last year, expressed its concerns about the loss of key staff in a statement issued Thursday: “We are saddened and disturbed by the number of lives and careers that have been disrupted as a result of the lockout. The collateral damage goes well beyond the musicians … The loss of talented employees with their years of experience in key areas such as human resources, fundraising, operations and sound engineering has caused a large loss of ‘institutional memory.’ These departures will make it even harder to restart the music and rebuild the orchestral program. This seems to us to be one more aspect that MOA seriously underestimated when starting the disastrous lockout. 

“SOSMN believes that with the new agreement, new MOA leadership, and a renewed commitment to excellence and collaboration in all areas of operation that the community can support, the Minnesota Orchestral Association will become once again a destination orchestra and organization for musicians, non-musician staff, and the public.”

We’re told that with a contract in place, MOA can now begin hiring for additional positions. But the first priority, according to MOA spokesperson Gwen Pappas, is “to get concerts back onstage.”

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Orchestra no longer has a music director, and its prestigious Composer Institute lacks a director. Both Osmo Vänskä and Aaron Jay Kernis resigned on the same day.

There’s a lot of work to do, and fewer people on both sides to do it.

The end of the 15-month lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra musicians made news all over. Responses ranged from elated to cautionary.NPR: “Strike up the band!” The New York Times: “The orchestra is facing daunting challenges.” The Washington Post: “The contract represents something that was starting to seem impossible in the increasingly hostile environment: a genuine compromise from both sides.” Chicago-based arts consultant and blogger Drew McManus: “By all means, be happy that the lockout has come to an end, but wait patiently for the full details before forming conclusions and question everything.” The Guardian: “One of the US’s finest orchestras will be back in February in its own hall, playing so-called ‘homecoming’ concerts for the people it owes the most to – the concertgoers of Minneapolis.”

Blogger Scott Chamberlain praised the musicians: “Without a formal, practical background in this area, you created and maintained your own concert season.” (In the future, when we look back at the whole debacle, that may be the most remarkable development of all.) MPR’s Euan Kerr notes that “in many ways the hard work is just beginning … there are huge logistical issues to overcome,” including moving into the new hall and unpacking the music library. Alex Ross, who gave the orchestra some of its highest praise and lobbed some of the most memorable stingers at management during the lockout, is on sabbatical. If you haven’t read Doug Grow’s thoughtful take on what lies ahead, you can find it here.

Some commentators stuck pins in our party balloons.British author and arts blogger Norman Lebrecht: “Peace has been declared in Minneapolis. But who wins? No-one. The Minnesota Orchestra today is a broken reed.” The World Socialist Web Site: “The musicians fought courageously for 16 months … Their defeat at the hands of Minnesota’s political and financial elite marks another step in the nationwide assault on the social right to culture.” And the Strib’s editorial board: “If nothing else, the 15-month standoff should convince both sides that a status quo approach is not acceptable. Artistic excellence is no longer enough.”

Leonard Slatkin, music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (and of our own Sommerfest from 1980-89), told the Times, “The biggest thing they have to do now is not about the music – it’s about reconnecting with everybody in the Twin Cities.” Slatkin has been there, done that; the DSO almost went under three years ago. It’s back in the black today in a city so strapped for cash it has been considering selling the contents of its own art museum.

Is there a chance that Osmo Vänskä will return?KSTP blogged, “[We] stopped by Vanska’s home to ask him that question in person. But when we buzzed him to get let in, he didn’t answer.” Maybe because he wasn’t there? Graydon Royce wrote, “Vänskä was flying from Finland to Israel on Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.” Royce also reported the “tantalizing item” that appeared in Finland’s main newspaper: that “in response to Facebook pleas for his return to Minnesota, the conductor reportedly posted: ‘I’m going to try! But they have to ask me!’ ” At least Vänskä, who's doing a lot of guest conducting, hasn’t taken another job in the interim.

While the musicians prepare to return to work, the full-time staff at the Guthrie will get a week off in January without pay. About 120 employees will be furloughed while the theaters are dark (public tours resume Feb. 7, but no plays are scheduled until Feb. 13, when “Tristan & Yseult” opens) and workers perform routine maintenance. Carpets will be cleaned, floors refinished, and house-light operating systems replaced. The Guthrie’s director of external relations, Trish Santini, told MPR’s Marianne Combs that the furlough is not linked to last year’s $438,000 deficit, the theater’s first in 18 years.

Photo by Aaron Rubenstein

Victoria Theater at 825 University Avenue

If all goes well, Frogtown will one day have a community-owned and managed arts center, with space for arts engagement, education, and performance. The Twin Cities Community Land Bank is purchasing St. Paul’s historic and long-vacant Victoria Theater at 825 University Avenue, between an Ethiopian restaurant and a planned commercial/residential redevelopment project. The Land Bank’s purchase is on behalf of the Victoria Theater Arts Initiative (VTAI), which intends to revitalize the building. Built in 1915, the theater has served as a silent movie house, nightclub, cabaret, café and lamp store. It narrowly escaped demolition before being named a historic preservation site by the City of St. Paul in 2011. Learning about the Victoria, we thought immediately of the Capri in North Minneapolis, which is now an anchor in its community. 

Courtesy of the Wakler/Mitro Hood Photography

Darsie Alexander

The Walker’s chief curator, Darsie Alexander, has been named the new executive director of the Katonah Museum of Art in New York. She will start there on March 1. Alexander came to the Walker in early 2009 from the Baltimore Museum of Art, where she was senior curator of contemporary arts. At the Walker, she oversaw programs in exhibitions, visual arts, design, performing arts, and film/video, along with the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The BMA was an encyclopedic museum; the Walker is a contemporary art center; the Katonah is a non-collecting museum that hosts a dozen or so art exhibits each year but doesn’t have a permanent collection. While at the Walker, Alexander brought us “Benches & Binoculars,” talked John Waters into guest curating “Absentee Landlord,” and orchestrated the purchase of the 3,000-object Merce Cunningham Dance Archive, one of the Walker’s most important acquisitions to date. Her “International Pop” opens at the Walker in 2015 before traveling to Dallas and Philadelphia. Olga Viso, the Walker’s executive director, is “delighted to have a new colleague among the museum director ranks.” Viso will oversee curatorial affairs at the Walker “as we search for new curatorial talent for the team.”

When congressional leaders unveiled the Fiscal Year 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Bill earlier this week, arts advocates breathed a sigh of relief. The bill includes $146 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which took a $7.3 million sequestration hit in FY 2013. Also included: $25 million in funding for the Arts in Education program at the U.S. Department of Education. Earlier, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed reducing the NEA by 49 percent, and efforts were made to zero out Arts in Education. The Omnibus bill is expected to pass Congress this weekend.

Many jazz fans know the voice of Leigh Kamman. He spent 60 years in broadcasting, most in the Twin Cities, first at WLOL, then KSTP-AM, and then, starting in 1973, at MPR as host of “The Jazz Image,” where his final broadcast was Sept. 29, 2007. He interviewed hundreds of jazz artists including Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan and Stan Kenton. Starting this week — on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11:30 a.m. — Jazz88 KBEM (88.5 FM) is broadcasting a series of 13 painstakingly restored and edited interviews, including fresh commentary from Kamman. Listen during broadcast times or online anytime. The first episode, “Count Basie,” is available now. An audio wayback machine, complete with the sound of Alice Babs, the series was made possible by the Legacy Amendment.

So were the $4.2 million in Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage grants handed out Wednesday to dozens of organizations in 47 counties throughout the state. The Minnesota Historical Society, which administers the grants, announced the newest recipients of 111 grants to nonprofit and educational organizations, government units and tribal organizations. Among the big winners: the City of Granite Falls, which received $153,990 to stabilize and restore the foundation and footings of the Andre J. Volstead House, a National Historic Landmark used as a community reception space; the Wabasha County Historical Society, $303,410 for the exterior rehabilitation of Reads Landing School, also on the National Register and currently used as a museum; the University of Minnesota, Duluth, $100,000 to begin researching and drafting a scholarly manuscript on the history of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe; and the Dakota County Historical Society, $25,200 to research, finalize and design an exhibit on the beginnings of the computer industry in Minnesota. Here’s the complete list of grantees.

The next Talk of the Stacks season has been announced. Now in its eighth year, hosted by Friends of the Hennepin County Library, this free series brings top authors to the downtown Minneapolis library for readings and discussions. Feb. 8: Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine contributing editor and author of “All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting.” March 7: novelist and short story writer Lorrie Moore (“Bark”). April 3: poet Ron Padgett (“Collected Poems,” new from Coffee House). May 12: novelist Francine Prose (“Reading like a Writer,” “Lovers at the Chameleon Club Paris 1932”). All events at 7 p.m., doors at 6:15.

In case you’re already dreading the end of Season 4 of “Downton Abbey,” the Oratorio Society of Minnesota has a palliative for you: a “Music of Downton Abbey” concert scheduled for Saturday, March 8, just one week after the final credits air on TPT. Over 100 choral and orchestral musicians will take a tour of post-Edwardian England, pairing musical selections with memorable events from the series. Actress Marsha Smith will play the role of a fictional visitor to Downton Abbey and convey the history of each piece to the audience. The music will include one world premiere and two U.S. premieres of recently rediscovered works from the era, music by the series’ Emmy-winning composer John Lunn, and sing-along hymns including “Jerusalem” and “Rule, Britannia!” 7:30 p.m. at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church. FMI and tickets ($20/$10). Funded, in part, by Legacy money.

Our picks for the weekend and Monday

Courtesy of Northern Clay Center

Bowl by Karen McPherson

Tonight at Northern Clay Center: Opening reception for “Three Jerome Artists” and “Fogelberg, Red Wing, and APS Artists.” The main gallery features work by Michael Arnold (wood-fired, wheel-thrown pottery made primarily from Minnesota clay), Karen McPherson (hand-built vessels for plants), and Ginny Sims (decorative motifs on majolica-based surfaces), all recipients of 2013 Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grants. In the Emily Galusha Gallery: work by award-winning artists Kevin Rohde (Baltimore), Josh Stover (Palm Beach), Colleen Riley and Adam Gruetzmacher. Artists lecture and talk at 4:30 p.m., reception 6-8 p.m. Free.

Tonight through Sunday at the Lab Theater: “Antigone.” The students of the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts tackle Sophocles’ great tragedy, third of the Theban plays. Oedipus is dead, and things are about to go south for his sons and daughters. 7 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday, noon Sunday. Tickets here ($10).

Saturday at Hopkins Center for the Arts: Leon Bates. The classical pianist performs works by African American composers in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Concert: 8 p.m. Social: 7 p.m. Pre-concert talk by Bates: 7:15 – 7:45. FMI and tickets ($24). Here’s Bates playing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Sunday at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church: “Rondo ’56.” In honor of MLK Day, pianist Dan Chouinard and friends – vocalists Yolande Bruce, Bruce Henry, Cynthia Johnson, T. Mychael Rambo, and a band with a horn section — remember St. Paul’s African American Main Street, pre-I-94, in songs, stories, and images. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($20).

Sunday at the Ted Mann: 33rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute. With Bill Banfield and Jazz Urbane and performances by Ysaye Barnwell (Sweet Honey in the Rock), Yolanda Williams, and high school students from the FAIR School in Minneapolis. This concert honors both Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Reginald Buckner, U of M School of Music professor and founder of the concert. 4 p.m. Free and open to the public.   

Monday at the Cedar: “Henry … Mr. Bones, in Memory of John Berryman.” Composer and sound designer Greg Brosofske presents his 416 Club Commission, a journey through the language, imagery and rhythms of Minnesota poet John Berryman, who died a suicide in 1972. Brosofske will use a “fugue-like conversation between many musical voices” to mirror the style of Berryman’s best-known book, “The Dream Songs.” The performance will be followed by a reading and discussion of Berryman and his poems by writers including poet Michael Dennis Browne and Berryman scholar Richard Kelly. Doors at 7 p.m., show at 7:30. Tickets here ($5) or at the door.

The newly renovated Orchestra Hall was supposed to have its grand re-opening in summer 2013. Events intervened, so to speak, but now that the lockout is over, those of us who weren’t at the Symphony Ball in September or one of the rental events since then will finally get a look at the new digs. (Black seats. Big lobby. Yes, the sound cubes are still there.) Two weekends of homecoming concerts were announced Friday, and the public is invited to a free open house before each concert, starting at 4 p.m. No tickets or reservations are required to see the hall; just show up on Feb. 7 or 8, or Feb. 14 or 15.

Those are the dates the Minnesota Orchestra will give its first performances in its new home. On Feb. 7 and 8, Conductor Laureate Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, who stood staunchly by the musicians during the lockout, will lead Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony, his own arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Strauss’ “Don Juan.” (We last heard Skrowaczewski lead his Bach at the Season Finale concerts in 2012, just before renovations began.) On Feb. 14 and 15, French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier will conduct Elgar’s Cello Concerto, with guest Steven Isserlis on cello, and Holst’s “The Planets,” with the women of the Minnesota Chorale. (What’s with Isserlis and end-of-lockout shows? Last May, he played the SPCO’s first official concert after its contract was settled. Perhaps he possesses the secret healing sauce. His performance with the SPCO of the Schumann cello concerto was gorgeous.) All Minnesota Orchestra concerts start at 8 p.m. Tickets go on sale to the general public online this Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 5 p.m. Bonus: All concertgoers will receive a copy of the Orchestra’s Grammy-nominated recording of the Sibelius Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4. (By then, we hope, it will be a Grammy winner. We’ll find out Jan. 26.)

The 2014 season will be unveiled Jan. 24. Will it include any or all of the concerts the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra planned to produce on their own and announced in December? Will we see Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell and Judd Greenstein? According to the musicians’ website (which we hope they will continue to update on their own), “Efforts are currently underway at the Minnesota Orchestral Association to fold these concerts and artists into the offerings for a series of concerts that will be announced soon. We apologize that we cannot offer further details at this time.” Tickets had not yet been sold for the future concerts, so ticketholders are not affected. What about the “Echoes of History” concerts with the musicians and Osmo Vänskä that were scheduled as part of Northrop’s grand re-opening in May? Northrop’s director, Christine Tschida, told MinnPost on Monday, “We have confirmation from both the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestral Association that the programs will indeed go forward.” FMI here and here.

The Minnesota Chorale, the principal chorus of the Minnesota Orchestra since 2004 (but a regular performer with the orchestra for nearly four decades), must be very relieved that the lockout has ended. But it has learned some valuable lessons along the way. “In addition to resuming our appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra,” board president Elizabeth Balay wrote in an email last week, “we’re determined to expand on the artistic gains of the past year, during which our independently-produced concerts have made us new friends and audiences in new places.” Glad to hear it. This Sunday at the Landmark Center, you can join the Chorale and the St. Paul Civic Symphony for a Mozart Requiem sing-along. The Chorale is nicely warmed up, having performed the Requiem with the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra less than two weeks ago at the Ted Mann. 3 p.m. Free-will offering; no tickets or reservations required.

Three teams of finalists have been selected for the next Creative City Challenge. They will now prepare final proposals for a commission to produce an installation on the Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza. (The first Creative City Challenge winner, in case you’ve forgotten, was MIMMI, a giant cloud-like sculpture that changed color depending on the city’s mood.) This year’s proposed projects include “Balancing Ground,” an interactive space with teeter-totters; “Chrysalis,” with a tower pavilion and light show; and “SPark,” for Sentient Park, with human-sized flower components that respond to visitors with movement and light. Read more about them here. Which sounds most fun and interesting to you? Think about that. We’ll all get to vote for our favorites starting Feb. 3.

The Jerome Foundation has authorized more than $1 million in grants to arts organizations in Minnesota and New York. Minnesota winners are Northern Clay Center, Franconia Sculpture Park, Springboard for the Arts, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, the Playwrights’ Center, the Loft Literary Center, Milkweed Editions, Open Eye Figure Theatre, Pillsbury United Communities on behalf of Pillsbury House + Theatre, and Highpoint Center for Printmaking. Most of the grants support new work by emerging artists. Complete details here.

Courtesy of the Dakota

Sandra Bernhard will be the Dakota’s first-ever comic.

Once a jazz club and restaurant, now a music club and restaurant, the Dakota will be a comedy club and restaurant for two nights later this month. On Jan. 26 and 27, Sandra Bernhard will become the Dakota’s first-ever comic. Bernhard is on tour with her latest one-woman show, “I Love Being Me, Don’t You?” which the critics really like. (The L.A. Times: “like hanging out with a hip and funny friend who never fails to lift you up with her outrageous freedom.”) FMI and tickets ($40-$60). There’s still good jazz at the Dakota, including a parade of big-name singers starting in February. On Feb. 13: Kurt Elling. Feb. 16: Gregory Porter. March 8: Cécile McLorin Salvant. (Both Porter and Salvant are Grammy nominees.) Between Porter and Salvant, the great trumpeter Terence Blanchard (also a Grammy nominee) returns. April 28: Joe Lovano & Us Five. Check the website FMI.

Photo by Michal Daniel

“Cabaret” opened at the Pantages on Friday.

What can we say about “Cabaret,” which opened at the Pantages on Friday? Simply that “Cab” is fab. From the moment emcee Tyler Michaels drops down on a rope into an audience member’s lap to Kira Lace Hawkins’ final appearance as Sally Bowles, Peter Rothstein’s production is a (mostly) nonstop whirl of song, dance, glam, torn stockings, flesh, and mounting, sickening dread as the Nazis rise to power in Weimar Germany. Part of the Broadway Re-Imagined series, a collaboration between Rothstein’s Theater Latté Da and Hennepin Theatre Trust (previous projects: “All Is Calm” and “Aida”), this all-local show is dazzling. We’d seen the 1972 Oscar-winning film by Bob Fosse and were a bit concerned going in that we wouldn’t be able to get past the indelible performances by Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli. But the extravagantly talented Michaels, who is destined to be a big star, and Hawkins, whose performance grew in power and conviction, took care of all that, along with their co-stars Sally Wingert as brittle, who-cares Fraulein Schneider, James Michael Detmar as her tender and patient Jewish suitor, Herr Schultz, and Sean Dooley as American writer Clifford Bradshaw, alter-ego for Christopher Isherwood, on whose “Berlin Stories” the musical is based. New York’s Roundabout Theatre is preparing its own Broadway revival of “Cabaret,” which opens in April. They should save themselves the trouble and borrow ours. FMI; through Feb. 9.

Our picks for the week

Tonight (Tuesday, Jan. 21): Omnifest at the Science Museum. This year’s version of the museum’s annual giant-screen film fest features “Great White Shark” (new to the Omnitheater), “Blue Planet” (with footage from five different space shuttle missions), “Ring of Fire” (volcanoes!), “Stomp’s World Beat” (about the globe-trotting stage show), and “To the Limit” (with endoscopic footage of athletes’ muscles, respiratory and circulatory systems). Films show in rotation daily (except Mondays, when the museum is closed). Through Feb. 28. FMI and tickets.

Wednesday, Jan. 22: Andy Sturdevant (MinnPost’s “The Stroll”) reads from his book of essays, “Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow,” at the Hamline-Midway Library in St. Paul. Sturdevant isn’t a native Minnesotan – he moved here in 2005, which means he’s still on probation – but he already knows more about the Twin Cities than most of us ever will. 7 p.m., free.

Wednesday, Jan. 22: Words with Wolves at Subtext. Here’s a themed evening you won’t see every day. Three Minnesota-based novelists will read from new and recent novels, and all of the novels have wolves in them. Why not? With Benjamin Percy (“Red Moon”), Thomas Maltman (“Little Wolves”), and Peter Geye (“The Lighthouse Road”). 7 p.m., free.

Wednesday, Jan. 22: Goran Ivanovic Trio at Icehouse. If you love the guitar, do not miss this. Born in Croatia to a Bosnian Croat mother and Serbian father, Goran was a child prodigy who left home to study in Salzburg just before the outbreak of the civil war. Expelled from Croatia, his parents joined him in Salzburg as refugees and were later granted political asylum in the U.S. Now based in Chicago, Goran has recorded with Andreas Kapsalis and Fareed Haque. Playing classical nylon-string guitar, he blends fiery Balkan folk melodies with Spanish and Latin American music, jazz and blues rhythms. Acoustic Guitar magazine named “Blackmail,” his 2013 recording with Kapsalis, one of the year’s best. Here’s a video. 10 p.m., 21+. FMI and tickets ($10).

Courtesy of Children's Theatre Company

“The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Eric Carle Favorites” at the Children’s Theatre.

Thursday, Jan. 23: “The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Eric Carle Favorites” at the Children’s Theatre. If you don’t have a preschooler of your own, rent one for this enchanting hour of black-light puppetry pulled from the pages of Carle’s “Little Cloud,” “The Mixed-Up Chameleon,” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” The members of Nova Scotia’s Mermaid Theatre Company, dressed all in black (as “theater ninjas”) so they can manipulate the puppets without being seen, come out afterward to take questions and share secrets about the plays. The show takes its time, like turning the pages of a book, but it has an essential sweetness, laugh-out-loud moments, and real magic. 7 p.m. (lasts about an hour). Through Feb. 23. FMI and tickets ($24-$47). Note the dates of these special performances: Jan. 31 (ASL/AD), Feb. 8 (Sensory-Friendly, for children and families with sensory, learning, and social disabilities; developed in partnership with the Autism Society of Minnesota); Feb. 20 and 21 (Spanish).

Thursday, Jan. 23: Michael Janisch’s Purpose Built Quintet at Studio Z. An award-winning bassist, bandleader, producer, and native of Ellsworth, Wisconsin, Janisch has spent the past 15 years in New York and Europe and now lives in London, where he teaches at the Royal Academy of Music and the Trinity Conservatoire. For his first local concert as a leader, he’s bringing his all-star quintet of New York musicians: Matthew Stevens on guitar, Patrick Cornelius on alto saxophone, Philip Dizack on trumpet and Clarence Penn on drums. Visit Janisch’s website to hear music and watch videos. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets. Free workshop at 6 p.m.

The long lockout may be over, but the Minnesota Orchestral Association board of directors still is under tremendous pressure.

Given the realities of public and political pressures, it appears certain that Osmo Vänskä must be asked to return as music director if the Minnesota Orchestra’s process of healing is to move forward.

That, however, cannot be an easy task for the board or current management.

It was Vänskä, after all, who put so much pressure on the board to resolve the lockout. Rather than remaining neutral in the dispute, Vänskä, by his actions, became the symbol of choosing artistic excellence over bottom-line business calculations. On Oct. 1, he followed through on his threat to resign from his million-dollar post. 

No other event during the dispute created so much attention in the media or from the various classical-music fan organizations that were created during the lockout than the departure of the 60-year-old Finn.

Vänskä became a symbol of artistic 'loss'

He came to represent all that was being lost in the dispute.

Given Vänskä’s international stature, comments by Michael Henson, the MOA’s chief executive, and by board leaders Jon Campbell and Richard Davis seemed shallow and cold.

In a Minnesota Public Radio interview, for instance, when Vänskä was in the process of leaving, Henson made statements that became a public relations nightmare for the MOA.

“Ultimately, if Osmo decides to go, it is his decision,” Henson said in the interview. “We want him to stay through the end of his contract (2015). ... We have had many distinguished conductors in the past.”

Henson’s point, of course, was that conductors come and go — which is true. But under Vänskä, the orchestra had achieved an international stature that it never before had enjoyed.

Even Minnesotans who wouldn’t walk across Nicollet Avenue to see the orchestra perform had been able to take pride in the prestige the assembly brought to its home state. 

Prior to the lockout, the board understood how important Vänskä was to its mission. 

Hausman: Vänskä sold Hall makeover

Rep. Alice Hausman, a DFLer from St. Paul, recalled Vänskä’s role in winning state bonding money for the rehab of Orchestra Hall.

“When our House committee visited Orchestra Hall for the bonding pitch,” Hausman said, “it was Osmo Vänskä on the stage making the pitch. I think he was alone on that stage. We never would have done this for a board of directors, but we built it for the musicians and the director.”

Hausman is among those who believe that the board must ask Vänskä to return, noting that the music director seems to have made it clear that all the board must do is ask.

“We will look just as foolish as we did during the lockout if we don’t ask him back,” Hausman said.

It was Vänskä who set the stage for a return when a Finnish newspaper reported that he had posted on Facebook: “I’m going to try! But they have to ask me!”

On so many levels, that would seem like such a simple thing for the board to do: Call up the maestro and say, “Please come back.”

Most musicians have made it clear they would see that as a very positive step in putting the pieces back together. The musicians believe that it was Vänskä’s vision and discipline that moved the orchestra to an elite level.

Orchestra fans — those who joined such organizations as Orchestrate Excellence and Save Our Symphony — also have been clear: A return of Vänskä is a necessary step to begin the healing. 

Those “fans” are vital to the future of the orchestra. They may not be the big hitters in terms of donations, but they understand and love the music and they buy the tickets.

Kelley cites 'energy'  of musician supporters

Additionally, as Doug Kelley, who ended up as one of the key negotiators for the MOA, noted, they created “energy” during the lockout. These were the people filling various concert halls to hear the locked-out musicians perform.

On the evening that the board and musicians voted to ratify the new contract, Kelley acknowledged that the “energy” of those followers is needed at Orchestra Hall.

“It seems to me that returning him to the podium would be a PR win-win for the MOA,” wrote Nils Halker, secretary of Save Our Symphony, Minnesota, in an e-mail.

 “It would hugely benefit musical rebuilding/restoration and I suspect would also really help in rebuilding/restoring trust of donors,” he wrote.” Getting Osmo back would send a message to the community that the MOA is truly committed to continuing a world-class orchestra. I’m not under any illusion that getting Osmo back would solve everything but without him I think the challenges of rebuilding the orchestra will be much greater.”

On one hand, people such as Hausman and Halker — and presumably many, many more — are surprised that the MOA hasn’t already reached out to Vänskä.

But Hausman has been told in conversations with board members and those associated with board members that this is not as easy as picking up the phone. There is a sense among at least some board members that Vänskä “burned his bridges” with his passionate resignation.

Although Vänskä never point-blank said the actions of the board were wrong-headed, it was clear that he stood with the art, not the bottom line. At a “farewell” concert following his resignation, Vänskä asked the crowd to not applaud in a closing encore piece.

"I ask you to hold your applause after this encore. I have to say that the situation here is terrible, and the orchestra is in so terrible and ... and ... like almost hopeless situation right now, and that situation doesn’t need any applause."

These were bruising words to a board that had hired Vänskä to a rich contract.

Henson’s fate, role uncertain

Additionally, there is the complex situation with Vänskä and Henson. It’s almost impossible to imagine that the two could work together again.

For that matter, it’s difficult to imagine how Henson, with or without Vänskä, can be part of a healing scenario among musicians, the board and the community.

Yet, the board seems to face a dilemma: Can it reasonably fire the guy whose strategy it embraced and then rehire the person who, through his actions, said the strategy was folly?

Perhaps, recent weeks have created enough new leadership on the board that Vänskä can be called back and Henson either pushed out or at least pushed into a corner, far from public eye.

But so far, Kelley — who for the moment is the face and voice of the board — is trying to juggle both. Henson, Kelley has said, will remain as CEO. The Vänskä situation will be dealt with another day, he said.

The board, though, is expected to elect a new board chairman — replacing Campbell — soon. Presumably, that move will set off a series of moves, including a phone call to Vänskä.

Save Our Symphony’s Halker doesn’t think the board has any option.

“The alternative, starting a search for a new music director, would be incredibly hard,” he said. “The entire musical world has been watching us and I imagine that most potential candidates would be very hesitant to step in right now.”

The resolution of the Minnesota Orchestra lockout may be comforting to many, but an uncomfortable reality will re-emerge if the institution goes back to the same 50-year-old vision that got it in trouble in the first place.

The tension of the lockout held within it great promise for creating a radically new, surprisingly relevant American orchestra model — one that could spark the imagination of orchestras nationwide caught for too long in the rehash of a limited understanding of their own power to transform lives with music.

But there is still a chance for Minnesota. Through an uncompromising commitment to creating deep and broad partnerships with young people and local community centers, the orchestra can use its artistic excellence and organizing expertise to develop a widespread network of life-changing neighborhood orchestras in the spirit of El Sistema and possibly help close the state’s education achievement gap. What better way to rebuild public good will?

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Last week, the Minnesota Orchestral Association and the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra ratified a three-year contract and ended the 15-month lockout that darkened Orchestra Hall.

The Minnesota Orchestra, along with other arts and cultural institution, plays a critical role in our social fabric. The lockout and the animosity generated throughout the state toward both sides in the dispute frayed that fabric. We need to start mending the rips and tears.

Here are some ideas on what’s at stake and the way forward.

Social capital and the arts

Why are some places richer than others? Economists attack this question by examining the relationship between a region’s outputs (e.g. per capita income) and inputs (e.g. the work force.) Many of these inputs are things: workers, machines, buildings, tools, and the like. However, when we add up the importance of these objects, we’re left with a lot to explain; in particular, over half of both the level of a region’s income and its growth rate are not explained by labor, capital, and other “stuff.”

This implies that intangibles play an important role in determining standards of living. One important intangible that economists try to measure is social capital. According to the World Bank, “Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions. Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together.”

Robert D. Putnam’s book "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community," brought the concept of social capital to the broader public. In a later book, "Better Together: Restoring the American Community," Putnam devotes a chapter to the connections between the arts, generally, and arts organizations, in particular, to an area’s social capital. He points out: “The arts can nurture social capital by strengthening friendships, helping communities to understand and celebrate their heritage, and providing a safe way to discuss and solve difficult social problems.”

The Minnesota Tour: a way to reconnect

The Minnesota Orchestra is one of the many arts organizations that contribute to the Minnesota economy both directly through things (artists, buildings, etc.) and indirectly by creating and maintaining social capital.

How can the Minnesota Orchestra start reconnecting with the community and begin replenishing the social capital lost during the lockout? 

Here’s an idea: The Minnesota Orchestra could stage a series of free concerts throughout the state. For starters, they could play in Minneapolis/St. Paul, St. Cloud, Duluth, Moorhead, Marshall and Rochester in order to cover most of the state. Local communities could provide the venues (e.g. Benedicta Arts Center at College of Saint Benedict or the Paramount Theater in St. Cloud) and handle local arrangements.

At each concert, there would be a performance by both the Minnesota Orchestra and by local musicians. For example, the Duluth Superior Symphony could play the first half of the concert in Duluth, followed by the Minnesota Orchestra. The local musicians and members of the Minnesota Orchestra would go to local schools and hold master classes to truly bring music to everyone.

 (Note: I can’t take credit for the idea of staging free concerts. David Stanoch floated the idea of “opening the doors of Orchestra Hall free to the public for a series of shows” on his Facebook page. David bears no responsibility for what I’ve done with his idea but credit for inspiring me.)

Who would pay?

A big question, of course, is who would pay for this?  Here’s another idea: Target Corporation. The recent security breach hurt Target’s reputation in the community; what better way start mending fences than sponsoring the Minnesota Orchestra throughout the state? Target could pay the expenses for the Minnesota Orchestra, including paying the musicians for each concert. Local businesses and nonprofits could partner with Target to, for example, collect donations for the local food shelf.

It’s easy to think of the orchestra as a frill or something that only affects a small number of Minnesotans. But we need to keep in mind that one reason Minnesotans enjoy a high standard of living is that we have invested in social capital, and that we’ve suffered a loss of that capital over the past 15 months.

I think that something like the Minnesota Tour would go a long way toward replenishing the Minnesota Orchestra’s good will, Target’s reputation, and Minnesota’s social capital. 

Photo by Timothy White

Vänskä will conduct superstar violinist Joshua Bell

Eager to throw open the doors to Orchestra Hall and get the musicians back on stage, the Minnesota Orchestra last week announced two weekends of homecoming concerts for February. Today it revealed its 2014 classical season, a full slate of concerts featuring great music, star soloists, a parade of visiting conductors, and the premiere of a new work by a Minnesota composer that celebrates the hall’s reopening. It’s a series that should please subscribers and draw newcomers curious to see the renovated space and hear the musicians who stayed together and played their own concerts during a grueling 15-month lockout. Even Osmo Vänskä will return to Orchestra Hall, though his title is now “former Music Director,” not Music Director.

The classical season, which runs from February to July, includes 39 concerts that are being called “the core of a concert season that also includes educational and family concerts, the renamed Live at Orchestra Hall series and Sommerfest.” Dates and details for the latter events will be announced next week.

Here’s what we can look forward to:

On Feb. 20, Michael Christie (the Minnesota Opera’s music director) will lead Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite, Ravel’s “Bolero” and Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, with pianist Daniil Trifonov. Feb. 28 and March 1, “West Side Story.” The Minnesota Orchestra will perform Leonard Bernstein’s score live to a screening of the remastered film. Sarah Hicks will conduct. March 6-8, Andrew Litton (our longest-tenured Sommerfest artistic director) will lead the orchestra and pianist (and MacArthur fellow) Stephen Hough in works by Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. March 13-15, Mark Wigglesworth will conduct Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10. March 22-23, Litton leads Debussy’s “La Mer” and works by Ravel and Britten, conducting from the piano.

Courtesy of the Minnesota Orchestra

Eric Whitacre will lead the orchestra and the Minnesota
Chorale in a choral celebration to include several
works by Whitacre.

On March 27-29, Vänskä will conduct Sibelius’ Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 in Grammy Celebration concerts originally planned by the musicians for earlier in March. April 10-11, Grammy winner Eric Whitacre will lead the orchestra and the Minnesota Chorale in a choral celebration to include several works by Whitacre. April 15, Vänskä will conduct superstar violinist Joshua Bell and the orchestra in works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Lalo, and Mussorgsky-Ravel (the evergreen “Pictures at an Exhibition”). The musicians will spend May 5-10 in Hibbing for a week-long Common Chords outreach residency. On May 15-17, Concertmaster Erin Keefe will be featured in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto; the program, led by Wigglesworth, will also include Wagner/de Vlieger’s “The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure.” June 5-7, Christopher Warren-Green will conduct Mozart’s three final symphonies; June 12-14, Associate Conductor Courtney Lewis will take the podium for Mahler’s Fifth. The June 14 performance will be a multimedia concert experience presented as part of the Northern Spark festival.

From June 26-29, the Minnesota Chorale and Yan Pascal Tortelier will return for the perennially popular “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff and St. Paul composer Steven Heitzeg’s “Now We Start the Great Round,” a newly revised version of the final work heard at the orchestra’s season finale concerts in June 2012, plus Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. July 10-11, Andrew Litton will conduct Rachmaninoff and Brahms, with guest pianist Natasha Paremski. July 12, Litton and Paremski will present“A Night in Vienna,” with works by Chopin and Strauss. The classical season ends Friday, July 18, with Courtney Lewis leading the orchestra and guest pianist Michael McHale in works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Mozart (Piano Concerto No. 23).

Continuing a long partnership with MPR, the Friday evening concerts will be broadcast regionally on MPR stations.

And there we have it. If this is what you’ve been missing – the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra, the nights at Orchestra Hall, the sounds of a great orchestra playing classical music live – then for heaven’s sake, go. Even if you’re mad at management, the board, the musicians, the union, or the people who have been calling and asking for donations. If you’ve been saying that the Minnesota Orchestra is a vital part of our cultural scene, then we humbly suggest you put your money where your mouth is. Supporters are people who show up.

Fans of Broadway musicals, get out your calendars now. Hennepin Theatre Trust has announced its 2014-15 season, a glittery mélange of Tony winners and old favorites to be staged at the Orpheum, the State and the Pantages. First, if you missed out on one of last season’s hottest tickets, “The Book of Mormon” will circle back Aug. 20 – Sept. 7. October 7-19: “Dirty Dancing–The Classic Story on Stage.” November 25-30: “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.” December 16-28: “Motown The Musical.” Jan. 20-25, 2015: “I Love Lucy Live on Stage.” Feb. 4 – March 1: “Oliver,” the newest Broadway Re-Imagined offering from the Hennepin Theatre Trust/Theater Latté Da partnership, whose latest, “Cabaret,” is at the Pantages now and a must-see. Feb. 17-22: “Pippin,” the Tony-winning revival. March 10-15: “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.” March 31-April 5: “Annie.” April 28-May 3: “Jersey Boys.” July 28-Aug. 2: “Kinky Boots,” winner of six 2013 Tony awards. “Motown The Musical,” “Pippin,” and “Kinky Boots” are all Minnesota debuts. Season packages are on sale now. Individual tickets will come later. FMI.

According to a recent Pew report, the vast majority of Americans ages 16 and older say that public libraries play an important role in their communities – because they provide materials and resources that give everyone a chance to succeed, because they promote literacy and a love of reading, because they improve the quality of life, and because they provide many services people would have a hard time finding elsewhere. Here’s our chance to show the libraries some love. The Friends of the Ramsey County Libraries will hold a “Great Gatsby Gala” fundraiser at the Roseville Library on Saturday, Feb. 1. MPR’s Kerri Miller will emcee, and the night will include Roaring 20s music, hors d’oeuvres, wine, silent and live auctions, games, dancing, and prizes for the best 1920s attire. (Costumes are encouraged.) The Friends hope to raise $20,000 to add 1,000 items to the lending collections of seven libraries. 6:30 - 9 p.m., 2180 Hamline Ave. N. FMI and link to tickets ($50 in advance, $60 at the door, $25 tax-deductible).

Libraries, schools, bookstores, community centers: Would you like a copy of this year’s National Poetry Month poster? Designed by artist Chip Kidd, it features a quote from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” And it’s free for the asking.

Is winter dragging on and on and on? Take a class. The U of M’s Learning Life program has several to choose from, including one on the wines of the Pacific Northwest (three sessions, with tastings, at the Carlyle in downtown Minneapolis), one on the role that setting plays in mystery, a book-clubbish course taught by three Minnesota mystery writers (Mary Logue, Rick Shefchick, and William Kent Krueger), one on French novels, and one on drawing birds (Can’t draw? No worries). See the complete list here.

Our picks for the weekend

Saturday at the Ritz: Ashwini Ramaswamy, “Swarupa” (Revelation). A member of the internationally renowned Ragamala Dance, and a 2013 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Ashwini explores in solo dance the need to find meaning in an unpredictable world, and the desire to transform finite earthly emotion into infinite, transcendent emotion. She’ll perform to live music by her mother Ranee (nattuvangam), Rajna Swaminathan (mridangam), Anjna Swaminathan (mridangam and violin), and Lalit Subramaniam (voice). 8 p.m. FMI and tickets ($15).

Courtesy of Ashwini Ramaswamy

Saturday at the Ritz: Ashwini Ramaswamy

Saturday and Sunday at the Roy Wilkins: 38th Annual Saintly City Cat Club Championship Cat Show. An excuse for us to post a cute cat picture, a reason for you to brave the cold and get out of the house. More than 300 cats representing as many as 26 breeds from the U.S. and Canada will compete for the “Best Cat” title. Cats will be judged in four classes: kittens (awww), championship, premiership, and household pets. You can park in the RiverCentre ramp on Kellogg and take the skyway to the Roy Wilkins. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets ($4/$3) at the door.

Sunday at the Artists’ Quarter: The club is closed, its future (as of this writing) still up for grabs, but you can buy a piece of history on Sunday afternoon. The sale will include hundreds of CDs for $1 each (many still shrinkwrapped, several recorded at the AQ, others by artists who played there, and artists who hoped to play there), signed and framed photos of jazz musicians (some from the Jackson St. location), plus books from doorman Davis Wilson’s eclectic collection. In the basement of the Hamm Bldg., 408 St. Peter St., St. Paul. 1 - 4 p.m.

Sunday at Hamline’s Sundin Music Hall: "Schubertiade." A concert in the spirit of Franz Schubert, who knew how to throw a party. In Schubert’s day, he and his friends would get together to make music, enjoy each other’s company, eat, and drink. That’s the plan for Sunday, when The Musical Offering presents Schubert’s Quintet in A major (“The Trout”), “Die Forelle” for piano and solo voice, the song cycle “Die schöne Müllerin,” and the Octet in F major. The afternoon begins with Schubert’s Quintet in A major, interspersed with breaks for food, drink, and socializing. The program starts at 3 p.m. and runs into the evening. Each block of music lasts about an hour. FMI and tickets ($50/$40, including dinner and refreshments).

Monday at Common Good Books: Joe Plut and Gretchen Hassler discuss John Hassler’s novel “Simon’s Night.” Minnesota novelist Jon Hassler, whose “Staggerford” is required reading, died in 2008. His novel “Simon’s Night,” the story of a retired professor of English at a small Minnesota college who has begun to forget things, was first published in 1979. It’s available again in a new edition that includes an essay by Hassler, “My Simon’s Night Journal,” annotated by Plut; Gretchen Hassler is the author’s widow. 7 p.m., free.

Monday at Plymouth Church: First reading from “Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford.” There’s poetry, and then there’s poetry. Not to tangle with the academy or disparage any stars or prize winners, but some poetry is a puzzle, and other poetry rings like a bell. It stays with you. You ponder it. You feel wiser and more insightful because of it. That’s the kind of poetry William Stafford (1914-1993) wrote in more than 60 books. Clear, thoughtful, plainspoken, profound. Graywolf Press has just published a collection of what they call “the poet’s 100 most essential poems.” Stafford’s son Kim did the selecting and editing, and he’ll give the inaugural reading at Plymouth as part of its Literary Witnesses series.  Co-sponsored by Graywolf, the Loft, and Rain Taxi Review of Books, this will be a carillon. 7 p.m. Free.

From the poem “Are You Mr. William Stafford?”

You can’t tell when strange things with meaning

will happen. I’m [still] here writing it down

just the way it was. “You don’t have to

prove anything,” my mother said. “Just be ready

for what God sends.” I listened and put my hand

out in the sun again. It was all easy.

 From the poem “Just Thinking”

Let the bucket of memory down into the well,

bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one

stirring, no plans. Just being there.

 

This is what the whole thing is about.

Park Square Theatre had big news on Monday. Its 2014-15 season will include 15 productions– a huge number. How can it manage so many? Because the second stage the theater has promised, planned and fundraised for will finally happen. “Timing has been everything in this campaign,” executive director Michael-jon Pease said. “We are working to finalize our construction financing package and raise the final $500,000 in the next few weeks in order to announce the start of construction.” The brand-new, intimate 200-seat Andy Boss Thrust Stage in the  Hamm Building will open in time to give the company two platforms for 2014-15.

Already in the works: “The Color Purple,” which will take the main stage in January 2015 with the largest all-African-American cast in the theater’s history. “After the artistic and audience success of ‘Ragtime,’ we are ready and excited for ‘The Color Purple,’” said artistic director Richard Cook. “I think it will touch our souls in a completely different way than the lavish Broadway tours that have come to town.” Lewis Whitlock III, a charter company member of Penumbra Theatre, will direct. On the Boss Stage, Park Square artistic associate Aditi Kapil will direct the area premiere of “The Other Place” by Sharr White, featuring Linda Kelsey and James A. Williams. The rest of the season will be announced in early March.

At the Park Square now,“School for Lies” is a naughty romp through 17th-century Parisian society. Loosely based on Molière’s “The Misanthrope,” written by David Ives (whose “Venus in Fur” was a provocative shocker last year at the Jungle), it’s a delicious diversion in towering wigs and low-cut gowns. Ives wrote entirely in iambic pentameter (the meter most of us are used to, thanks to Shakespeare), and outrageous rhymes, jokes and turns of phrase come thick and fast. (When was the last time you rhymed “dimity” and “equanimity”? Have you ever proclaimed “Better be a tart than Tartuffe!” Or declared “She exalts my soul! She’s single malt. She’s rain. She’s rock-and-roll!”) Ives even manages to work in “Dude” and “LOL.” It’s a silly play – it won’t change your life or make you think very hard, if at all – but if you love the English language and don’t mind spending an evening laughing out loud, this is one you probably shouldn’t miss. Throughout, canapés fly through the air so often that by mid-play, the stage looks like a used litter box. Ends this weekend. FMI and tickets.

Courtesy of the Minnesota Orchestra

Bobby McFerrin will be part of the Minnesota Orchestra's upcoming season.

Last week the Minnesota Orchestra announced the classical concerts in its 2014 season. Today it unveiled the rest of the season: a new series called “Live at Orchestra Hall,” a series of family-friendly performances, and this year’s Sommerfest concerts.“Live at Orchestra Hall” is described as “a broad-spectrum series of popular music, jazz, world music, Broadway classics, movie scores, comedy and other genres – bringing under one umbrella several separate concert series previously offered by the Orchestra.” In other words, these are the nonclassical concerts. The series is led by Sarah Hicks, who has a new title; formerly the orchestra’s principal conductor of pops, she’s now principal conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall. (The P-word, “pops,” only appears twice in the orchestra’s latest announcements, both times in reference to Doc Severinsen, the orchestra’s pops conductor laureate. Pops was not a popular word during the lockout.)

The “Live at Orchestra Hall” headliners include trumpeter Chris Botti; trumpeter and perennial Orchestra Hall favorite Doc Severinsen; jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis and guitarist John Pizzarelli together in a Nat King Cole tribute; vocalist Bobby McFerrin (who’s bringing his exceptional “spirityouall” concert here); world music ensemble Red Baraat; comedian Bill Cosby; “Bugs Bunny” and Pixar animated shows; singer-actor Matthew Morrison of television’s “Glee”; and the Midtown Men, singers from the original Broadway cast of “Jersey Boys.” Some concerts will feature the Minnesota Orchestra, others will not. Sommerfest, which takes over in July, includes patriotic music, classical music, show tunes and a semi-staged performance of Strauss’s opera “Die Fledermaus.”

The Friends and Family concerts, sponsored by the Friends of the Minnesota Orchestra (formerly WAMSO), are designed to bring kids into the hall. In fact, children (up to age 17) are admitted free with the purchase of an adult ticket, and adult tickets for these concerts are very affordable – from $5 for the first “Welcome Back” concert on Sunday, March 2, to $15 for the rest: “Rite of Spring,” Chris McKhool’s Fiddlefire (world music), and “Peter and the Wolf.” Three of the four concerts feature the Minnesota Orchestra; Courtney Lewis conducts two.

What’s missing? The “Inside the Classics” series, co-hosted by Sarah Hicks and violist Sam Bergman; we’ll be sad if that series is gone forever. Irvin Mayfield, who served as the orchestra’s first (and last?) artistic director of jazz from 2008 until the lockout began. The Composer Institute, whose co-founder and director, Aaron Jay Kernis, resigned the same day as Osmo Vänskä. Will that return? It’s a new start, a new world, and we’re willing to see how things shake out as the hall opens and the musicians return.

Minneapolis author Kate DiCamillo has won her second Newbery Award, for “Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.” For children’s book writers, the Newbery – established by the American Library Association in 1921, given “for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children” – is the Oscar and the Grammy rolled into one. DiCamillo won her first Newbery in 2004 for “The Tale of Despereaux.” Her second gains her entry to the even more elite ranks of authors who’ve won twice: Joseph Krumgold, Elizabeth George Speare, E.L.Konigsburg, Katherine Paterson, and Lois Lowry. DiCamillo makes six. She told Publishers Weekly on Monday that after she got the crack-of-dawn call from the Newbery committee, she went to her kitchen, had a cup of coffee and cried.

The finalists for this year’s Minnesota Book Awards were announced over the weekend. Among them are Mary Losure for “Wild Boy: The Real Life of the Savage of Aveyron” (category: Young People’s Literature), Matt Rasmussen for “Black Aperture” (Poetry), Thomas Maltman for “Little Wolves” (Novel and Short Story), Sue Leaf for “A Love Affair with Birds: The Life of Thomas Sadler” (Minnesota), Rachael Hanel for “We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter” (Memoir and Creative Nonfiction), William Kent Krueger for “Tamarack County” (Genre Fiction), Jack El-Hai for “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” (General Nonfiction), and Elizabeth Verdick for “Peep Leap” (Children’s Literature). The winners will be revealed Saturday, April 5, at the annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala, which is turning out to be quite the party. This year’s host: John Moe of MPR’s Wits. FMI and tickets.

Photo by Annabel Mehran

Body/Head is launching the MIA's new series, Sound.Art.MIA.

First the Minneapolis Institute of Arts revamps the museum gift shop (it’s now more spacious and exclusive), then opens a market off the lobby (Northern Grade, from Nov. 21-Jan. 3), and now two new restaurants, Dogwood in the lobby and Grain Stack upstairs. (We haven’t seen Dogwood’s menu yet, but Grain Stack serves things like carrot tartare and a pulled BBQ squash sandwich.) What’s next, indie rock? Well, yes. In late February, MIA launches a series called Sound.Art.MIA with Body/Head, an experimental electric guitar collaboration cooked up by Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) and Bill Nace (Vampire Belt) and served on their debut album “Coming Apart.” Here’s a taste. They’re so sure of themselves they’re skipping bars and clubs and touring only art museums. Thursday, Feb. 27, 7 p.m. Local banjo virtuoso Paul Metzger opens. FMI and tickets here ($20/$22, on sale starting today at 10 a.m.). The series is curated by Liz Armstrong, formerly of the Walker (among other places), who brought us “More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness” at MIA.

2014 (C) Calabay Productions

Brenda Harris and Greer Grimsley in "Macbeth"

Verdi’s “Macbeth,” based on Shakespeare’s dark play about ambition, tyranny and bloodshed, has begun its run at the Ordway. We won’t see the Minnesota Opera production it in time to write about it here before it ends, but we can tell you what Rob Hubbard of the Pi Press thought: “Brenda Harris [as Lady Macbeth] delivers a tour de force in this dark chiller of a production… a world of witches and crows, ominous shadows and whispering spirits … spine-tingling … seriously spooky … a cauldron full of menace.” Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree on preview night (“#BadDay for Banquo”). FMI and tickets.

We like how writer Sally Franson thinks. As a distraction from our deep freeze, she recommends reading Dante’s “Inferno.” She asks, “Who needs Sun Country and tan lines when you’ve got Satan and scorch lines?” Then she spells out the parallels between Dante’s circles of hell and our own lives as ordinary Minnesotans in the eternal damnation known as January. Read more here on the Loft’s blog, “Writers’ Block.” We recommend the Robert Pinsky translation, with the original Italian on facing pages.

Friday’s benefit concert at the Cedar raised almost $13,000 for the victims and families of the New Year’s Day fire down the street, exceeding the $10,000 goal. More organizations pledged their support and will be donating directly to a relief fund through Pillsbury United Communities. (Anyone can do this; go here, click Donate, and include “Cedar-Riverside Disaster Relief Fund” in the Comments.) The Cedar reports that Spider John Koerner greeted the audience in both English and Somali.

Our picks for the week

Tonight (Tuesday, Jan. 28) at the Minnesota History Center: History Lounge: The Original Gangsters. Through colorful stories, author Paul Maccabee (“John Dillinger Slept Here”) takes you on a tour of St. Paul in the 1920s and 1930s, when criminals, bootleggers, and thieves like Dillinger, Babyface Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis held St. Paul hostage. Learn about gangland romances and feuds, bank heists and assassinations. FMI. 7 p.m. Free.

Tonight at the Dakota: New Orleans pianist Tom McDermott. A former Duke of Dixieland, co-founder of the modern brass band the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, McDermott is one of the Big Easy’s premier piano players and composers. You might have seen him on the HBO series “Treme.” He’s joined by our own Patty and the Buttons, with the terrific Patrick Harison on button accordion. 7 p.m., $7.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan. 29) through Thursday at Carleton College in Northfield: A marathon reading of “Tristram Shandy.” This isn’t for everyone (which may be the understatement of the year), but if it’s for you, it’s really for you. In celebration of Laurence Sterne’s 300th birthday, Carleton is hosting a 24-hour start-to-finish reading of “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: Gentleman,” a novel about a lot of things including philosophy, Lockean psychology, obstetrics, noses, sexual practices, and metaphysical poetry. Starts at 12:50 p.m. Wednesday on the north balcony of the Sayles Hill Campus Center, ends at 11:50 a.m. (or thereabouts) on Thursday, with cake for the survivors. Faculty, students and staff including Carleton president Steve Poskanzer will participate. 

Thursday at the New Century Theatre:  “Five Course Love.” In this tasty musical comedy, three actors play fifteen different characters in five different restaurants, all on the hunt for love. Characters include a mob wife, a dominatrix and her kept man, a hill bandit and his rival – you can already tell that this will be a silly good time. Presented by Minneapolis Musical Theatre, whose performance last year of “Carrie: The Musical” was pretty terrific. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($24-$29). Through Feb. 16.