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Special Guests Saturday, September 9, 2006 Midwinter Tuba Quintet The five musicians who occasionally come together on A Prairie Home Companion as the Midwinter Tuba Quintet have outstanding separate careers. David Werden (euphonium) was with the United States Coast Guard Band for more than 20 years. He is a computer consultant and an instructor of euphonium and tuba at the University of Minnesota. John Tranter (euphonium) serves as Instructor of Low Brass at the University of Minnesota. He plays solo euphonium with the Sheldon Theatre Brass Band and is a frequent performer with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (on trombone). Lee Dummer (euphonium) performed with the Eastman Wind Ensemble before being selected as a member of the United States Army Band (Pershing's Own). He as appeared with various orchestras and ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra. Ralph Hepola (tuba) has played with The United States Army Band of Washington, D.C. and the Symphony Orchestra of Basel, Switzerland, among others. He is currently with Minnesota Opera and leads own group, Route 3. Tom McCaslin (tuba) has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New Mexico Symphony, the Santa Fe Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony and the Regina Symphony Orchestra. He is an instructor of tuba at Bemidji State University and in February will begin as Principal Tubist in the Auckland (New Zealand) Philharmonia.Tim Eriksen Tim Eriksen is nothing if not eclectic. After all, how many of us can lay claim to appearing on stage with Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson? As a kid Eriksen wanted to play punk rock. He wound up studying South Indian classical music and branched out from there. He's a singer; he plays guitar, fiddle, and banjo; and he's recently attracted a lot of attention for his longtime role as a leader in the centuries-old shape-note tradition. Yes, Tim Eriksen gets around. He was a founding member of the rock/punk/American traditional trio Cordelia's Dad and the stark shape-note vocal quartet Northampton Harmony, and he co-founded the Bosnian traditional/popular ensemble Zabe i Babe. He was a music consultant for the motion picture Cold Mountain (and made an appearance in the film). Eriksen has performed at folk and rock festivals in throughout North America and Europe. He currently makes his home in Minnesota, where he and his wife, University of Minnesota ethnomusicologist Mirjana Lausevic, are working on A World in Two Cities—a Web-based musical ethnography of the Twin Cities area.Adam Granger Adam Granger is a flatpicking guitar wiz. He has written about that style, given lessons, and played countless tunes since he taught himself to play 45 years ago. In 1974, he moved from his native Oklahoma to Minnesota, where he became a charter member of the Powdermilk Biscuit Band, A Prairie Home Companion's first house band. Following his APHC stint, he played for eight years in The Eclectic Brothers, an acoustic swing trio, then returned to solo work. His book-CD set, Granger's Fiddle Tunes for Guitar, is the largest collection of fiddle tunes in guitar tablature in the world. Granger's 10th album, Solo Plectrum, is scheduled for release later this year.Andy Stein Violinist and saxophonist Andy Stein was a regular member of Guy's All-Star Shoe Band on A Prairie Home Companion from 1989 to 2001. He collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman, and has performed with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Eric Clapton, Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, and many others.Prudence Johnson Prudence Johnson's career in music has taken her from stage (honky-tonks to Carnegie Hall) to silver screen (Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It). As one music critic put it, "[There's] not a genre she hasn't interpreted with her ducky, sensual alto voice and terminally good taste." Her 10 album releases include Moon Country, featuring the music of Hoagy Carmichael, and 'S Gershwin with pianist Dan Chouinard. Collaborating with four Minnesota composers, she created A Girl Named Vincent, the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay set to music and scheduled for CD release. Prudence also appears on (and produced) a new recording of Gales of November, the concert version of the play Ten November, chronicling the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. The CD is on the Sleeper label.Rhonda Vincent and the Rage Her biography is almost hard to read, like reading about Wayne Gretzky. She started playing when she was five years old -- music, not hockey -- and by age six was the drummer in the family band. So if you're a kid, 15 years old, and you're thinking of learning an instrument and you read something like this your heart is just going to sink. "Only fifteen years old, and already ten years behind."She has 21 albums out and has been a guest on 29 others. She has 9 videos to her credit and began winning awards in 1973, when she was the Missouri State Fiddle Champion; 38 more have followed, both instrumental and vocal, including a Grammy in 2004. The Wall Street Journal called her the "Queen of Bluegrass." Which might say as much for them as for her. She is an innovator, the first woman to break from traditional forms into a more complex and faster-paced instrumental style, and writing her own music in the process. Her latest CD is rightly named One Step Ahead, on the Rounder Records label. |
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