Zeitgeist at Vanguard New Music Series | Arts And Entertainment

The second installment of the 2025 Vanguard New Music Series, will take place at 7pm on Thursday, March 20 at Zion Community Commons in Saint Paul’s Midway neighborhood. The concert will feature Zeitgeist performing a program of premieres created by local composers through their annual Sounding Ground residency. The featured composers for the evening will be May Klug, Leyna Marika Papach, and Sarah M. Greer with special guest composer JC Sanford.

The concert is presented by Twin Cities-based nonprofit RenegadeEnsemble in collaboration with the Vanguard New Music Series, which launched in 2022 with a mission to promote and perform works by living composers in Minnesota and has resulted in the world premieres of more than 30 works. The 2025 season kicked off in January with a program centered around electroacoustic by Ryann Daisy Swimmer, and Benjamin Mansavage Klein. Concerts will continue all year long.

Founded in 2004 as a vocal ensemble at the University of Minnesota, RenegadeEnsemble

has performed a large variety of modern music, including such 20th century staples as

Erik Saties’s Vexations, George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique, Terry Riley’s In C, and Karlheinz

Stockhausen’s Stimmung as well as new works by living composers.

In 2022, RenegadeEnsemble refocused its mission towards vocal and instrumental chamber

music written primarily by composers connected to Minnesota and the upper Midwest to

better foster a community of local performers and audiences interested in new music.

Lauded for providing “a once-in-a-lifetime experience for adventurous concertgoers,”

Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and

woodwinds. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist

commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in Minnesota and

throughout the nation.  Zeitgeist collaborates with sound artists of all types to create imaginative new work that challenges the boundaries of traditional chamber music.

Lauded for providing “a once-in-a-lifetime experience for adventurous concertgoers,” Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and woodwinds. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in Minnesota and throughout the nation. Zeitgeist collaborates with sound artists of all types to create imaginative new work that challenges the boundaries of traditional chamber music. The members of Zeitgeist are: Heather Barringer, percussion; Patti Cudd, percussion; Pat O’Keefe, woodwinds; Nicola Melville, piano.