Sound Stage

Artist Biographies (as of Summer 2001)

Paul Dresher is one of the foremost and most internationally active composers of his generation. Noted for his ability to integrate diverse musical influences and media into his own coherent and unique personal style, he is pursuing many musical forms including experimental opera and music theater, chamber and orchestral composition, and live instrumental electro-acoustic. He has received commissions from the Library of Congress, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival USA, the Kronos Quartet, the California EAR Unit, San Francisco Symphony, Walker Arts Center, Zeitgeist, and the American Music Theater Festival. He has performed or had his works performed at venues as the Munich State Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Festival d'Automne in Paris, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, the Minnesota Opera, Arts Summit Indonesia'95, Festival Interlink in Japan, and five New Music America Festivals. His evening-length collaboration with choreographer Margaret Jenkins, THE GATES, premiered at Jacob's Pillow and opened the 1994 Serious Fun Festival at Lincoln Center.

Since forming the Paul Dresher Ensemble in 1985, he has guided the creation of the "American Trilogy," a set of experimental operatic works comprised of Slow Fire (1985-88), Power Failure (1988-89), and Pioneer. These works, created in collaboration with writer-performer Rinde Eckert, address different facets of American culture and have been performed hundreds of times in the US and Europe. In 1993, Dresher premiered his new "Electro-Acoustic Band," an ensemble that performs the work of a broad range of contemporary composers utilizing a hybrid orchestration which combines both acoustic and electronic instrumentation. The group has commissioned many works from some of the most innovative of today’s composers and regularly tours internationally. The Ensemble has also premiered the music for dance and theater collaborations with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, ODC San Francisco, and the John Adams/June Jordan/Peter Sellars production "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky."

Rinde Eckert is a writer, composer, singer, actor, and director whose music, music theater, and dance theater pieces have been performed throughout the United States and abroad. He has collaborated a great deal with composer Paul Dresher, having written and performed or directed ten pieces of theater or dance with Paul since 1980, including Slow Fire, Shelf Life (with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company), and Pioneer (with Robert Woodruff, Terry Allen, and Jo Harvey Allen). Rinde has also worked extensively with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Co., first as a writer performer, and later as composer, creating seven works since1987 including Shelf Life, Shorebirds Atlantic, and The Gates/ Faraway near and most recently Breathe Normally. In 1992 Rinde wrote, composed and performed The Gardening of Thomas D., an evening length theatrical duet with dancer Ellie Klopp. 1992 also saw the release of Rinde’s first recording Finding My Way Home (DIW Records, prod. Lee Townsend). Rinde has worked and collaborated with a wide variety of artists including Michael Palmer, John Sanborn, Joanne Akalaitis, Bruce Nauman, Jerry Granelli, Bill Frisell, Lynn Hershman, Sarah Shelton Mann and Contraband, ODC San Francisco, and Ohad Naharin. Romeo Sierra Tango, Rinde’s one man ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (commissioned by The New York Shakespeare Festival) was premiered at The Public Theater in New York on their New Works Festival in 1998. Ravenshead, a solo two act opera written in collaboration with composer Steven Mackey was also premiered in the fall of 98. In the summer of 99, Rinde finished a new children’s opera called Navigators; that fall he directed students at the University of Iowa in a new play he wrote for them entitled A Tale We Told The Queen on the Fourth Day of Our Journey to the East. In the spring of 2000 Rinde wrote, composed and performed (with Nora Cole) And God Created Great Whales which was commissioned by the Foundry Theater, it received an Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination. In the summer of 2000 Rinde represented the US at the Global Vocal Meeting produced by the Stimmen Festival. With Abdoulaye Diabate (Mali), Senge (Madagascar), Mitsou (Hungary), Sudha Ragunathan (India), and Corin Curschellas (Switzerland) he sang in festivals in Germany and Sweden.

As a concert pianist Tom Linker has performed throughout the world playing standard repertoire and is a regular concert pianist with the Crystal Cruise Line. He enjoys introducing audiences to new and little known music through unique stage performances and recordings and often works with other composers to create new work. Tom also works as a composer for theater, dance, and film. He has enjoyed working as a composer for theater, dance and film. He most recently began working with the Minnesota Dance Theater, which will premier Symphony Pastoral next season. As Music Director he has worked with many theaters including the Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theater Co. and Nautilus Music Theater. As a freelance musician he has worked with orchestras, ensembles and solo artists as a music director, conductor, pianist and composer both nationally and internationally recently exploring Leonard Bernstein’s music with the Oregon Festival of American Music and currently Mozart’s work with the upcoming production of Amadeus at the Guthrie Theater. He was co-artistic director of Zeitgeist from 1986-1998.

Founded in 1977, Zeitgeist’s mission is to enliven today’s music and expand its public with performances that absorb, stimulate, and hearten. Through concerts, commissions, recordings, and dialogue with our audiences, we strive to forge new links between musicians and music lovers, presenting works of substance with passion and authority.

Dedicated to contemporary music, in particular the music of the last twenty years, Zeitgeist has commissioned more than 70 works by both emerging composers and some of the finest established composers of our time, including John Cage, Frederic Rzewski, Terry Riley, Eric Stokes, Harold Budd, La Monte Young, Randall Davidson, Mark Applebaum, Eleanor Hovda, Arthur Kreiger, Mary Ellen Childs, Jerome Kitzke, Martin Bresnick, and Janika Vandervelde.

We have released three compact discs, including She’s a Phantom, music of Harold Budd (New Albion Records); Intuitive Leaps, music of Terry Riley (Work Music London and Sony Music Entertainment); and A Decade, music of Frederic Rzewski (O.O. Discs). Individual works we have recorded can also be heard on two other discs – Earthworks, featuring the music of Steve Heitzeg (Innova), and Opere Della Musica Povera, featuring the music of Martin Bresnick (CRI). In the near future, the ensemble will release a CD of the work of Eric Stokes (New World Records).

Percussionist/artistic co-director Heather Barringer joined Zeitgeist in 1990. In addition to performing and recording with Zeitgeist, she is a member of Mary Ellen Child’s ensemble, Crash and has worked with many Twin Cities organizations, including Nautilus Music Theater Ensemble, The Dale Warland Singers, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and Guthrie Theater.

Woodwind player and artistic co-director Patrick O’Keefe is a graduate of the New England Conservatory and Indiana University. Pat also recently finished his doctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego. In San Diego, he performed regularly with the new music ensembles SONOR and SIRIUS, as well as with the San Diego Symphony. Pat is actively involved in other musical endeavors as well, such as free improvisation and world music. He is a founding member of the improvisation group, Unbalancing Act, and has appeared in concert with such notable improvisors as George Lewis, Wadada Leo Smith, and J.D. Parran. In addition, he was also a percussionist with the Brazilian ensemble Sol e Mar in San Diego, and appears regularly with the groups Beira Mar Brazil and Brasamba in Minneapolis.

Yuri Merzhevsky was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He received his training in the Leningrad Conservatory of Music, and received his Ph.D. in 1988. Subsequently, he served as a professor of violin on the faculty there. Yuri has served as concertmaster in several orchestras, such as the Leningrad Conservatory Orchestra, and the Hermitage Orchestra. He was a frequent soloist with many orchestras in the Soviet Union, including the Leningrad Philharmonic. In 1989, Yuri immigrated to the U.S., where he has played as a soloist with the Minnesota Sinfonia, Members of the Utah Symphony, Olympia Chamber Orchestra, Plymouth Music Series, and various chamber music groups. Yuri also performs jazz, klezmer, and gypsy music. He has performed with Zeitgeist since 1997

Alexander V. Nichols design work spans from lighting and projections to scenery and costumes for dance, theater, and opera. Best known in the dance genre, Mr. Nichols has worked extensively in the San Francisco Bay Area with companies and artists including the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (since 1986), Joe Goode Performance Group, Zaccho Dance Theater, and ODC/SF. His work can currently be seen in the repertoire of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Hong Kong Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, BalletMet/Columbus, Singapore Dance Theatre, Richmond Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Smuin Ballets/SF, and the Fort Worth/Dallas Ballet. He has created designs for choreographers including Christopher d’Amboise, Val Caniparoli, Sonya Delwaide, Dominique Dumais, Allyson Green, Bill T. Jones, Jean Grand Maitre, Graham Lustig, Mark Morris, Kirk Peterson, Dwight Rhoden and Michael Smuin. Mr. Nichols has received eight nominations for the Dance Bay Area Isadora Duncan Visual Design Award and has been awarded two for "Georgia Stone" and "Age of Unrest" with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Co.

In the theater and opera genre, Mr. Nichols credits include the lighting for "Civil Sex" and projections for "Galileo" at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Scenery and lighting for "Ravenshead" and "Awed Behavior" by the Paul Dresher Ensemble and for "Dry Land Divine" and "The Gardening of Thomas D." by Rinde Eckert. His work has also been set on the National Theater of Taiwan, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Pennsylvania Opera Theater, Oakland Opera and the Magic Theater. Mr. Nichols continues to support small theater in the Bay Area by consulting and designing for the Z Collective, Campo Santo, and Performing Arts Reaching to Youth (PARTY).

Daniel Schmidt began building musical instruments as a teenager, developing a fascination for sound-sculpture. Building instruments and composing have been intertwined throughout his life in a quest to develop sounds to fulfil his compositional imagination. He has worked in theater and dance, built exhibits at the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco, designed a tap-dance floor for Anita Feldman, and built instruments for other composers, including John Adams and John Cage. He has collaborated with Paul Dresher since the mid-seventies on many instrument-building projects.

PRODUCTION BIOGRAPHIES

Chris Benson has been a sound engineer for many music, dance, and theatre productions in the Twin Cities. In addition to the Southern Theater he has worked at many venues including the Fitzgerald, Ordway, O’Shaughnessy, Orpheum, and State theaters. He also does location recording for film and video productions including five feature films and numerous commercials.

Assistant Producer Stephen Rueff is a member of the Twin Cities arts community and has worked with many local and national artists and organizations. He has greatly enjoyed working with Zeitgeist and Paul Dresher on Sound Stage.

Chris Heagle, Production Manager, is excited to being working with this talented group of artists on Soundstage. He has been a part of the local theater and arts community for over ten years, working as a sound and lighting designer, and technician for a wide variety of performing arts organizations including Walker Art Center, Southern Theater, Guthrie Lab, and Ordway Center. He recently left his position as Production Manager for Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis to pursue interesting projects like this one. Chris holds an M.F.A. in Theatre Design from the University of Illinois where he studied at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Richard Ashcraft Wilson has enjoyed working with Paul Dresher’s fantastic musical instruments. Rich is an artist whose work can be seen throughout the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. He is a painter, illustrator, batik artist, mask performer, and shadow puppetter. His company, Ashcraft Designs, produces murals, Batik fabric, and bamboo tents, paintings, books, theatrical sets, animations, and boats.

Stage Manager Heidi Eckwall is a lighting designer, experimental film/video maker and writer. She sometimes moonlights as a production stage manager. Recent shows include the Zenon and Ragamala Spring Concert (lights), Cathy Young Dance at Patrick's Cabaret (lights), "Kalevala" (stage manager), Hijack's "It Took Great Luck for You to Be a Winner" (God), and "No. 7" (set and lights) for Three Legged Race. This summer she's shooting video for Mary Ellen Childs, tutoring reading in the St. Paul public schools, and helping her dad rebuild a cabin.