Singer joins Turtle Island Quartet for eclectic performance
Quartet members will also work with student musicians
The Turtle Island Quartet performed to a sold-out hall the last time they were in town, so if you’re eager to hear the two-time-GRAMMY-winners again, get your tickets soon – there are only 330 tickets available. The addition of smooth voiced-Nellie McKay will make the ticket even hotter, and the stuff the musicians are performing will surprise you. They’re on the Gaede Stage in the Roland Dille Center for the Arts on the MSUM campus Thursday, Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m.
The quartet musicians and McKay, a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, will perform music ranging from Billie Holiday, Billy Strayhorn, and the Weimar cabaret of the 1920’s. The set list includes standards such as Street of Dreams, The Very Thought of You, I Cover the Waterfront and These Foolish Things, to the more offbeat, such as Marlene Dietrich’s sultry version of Black Market, and Alabama Song, the German Cabaret tune revisited in modern times by the Doors. Also included are a couple numbers by Doris Day, whose music is revisited by McKay on her recent recording Normal as Blueberry Pie. The musicians will also perform some of their own music.
While the combination of voice and strings has long been a staple of the classical genre as well as of contemporary music, McKay’s use of piano, mallets, and ukulele and Turtle Island’s famed innovative rhythmic techniques make this an especially unusual program.
The members of Turtle Island are also working with high school and college string musicians in a masterclass setting on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 1 p.m. on the Gaede Stage. That event is free and open to the public.
For tickets to the Thursday performance, go to www.mnstate.edu/tickets or visit or call the MSUM Box Office Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at (218) 477-2271. Tickets are also available at the door the night of the performance if not sold out.