By Katherine Bergman, Zeitgeist

Long known for its creative culture, the historic Northwestern Building in the heart of Lowertown St. Paul is host to Second Floor Live, a cluster of performance spaces with a variety of musical offerings, including classical, jazz, contemporary, musical theatre and more. Second Floor Live is comprised of Studio Z, a gathering place for all types of new music, and the Baroque Room, which is acoustically designed for early music. With all of the musicians performing at Second Floor Live, it is only natural for them to come together in a collaborative project.

New music quartet Zeitgeist will join forces this month with the Baroque Room’s Flying Forms for a collaborative celebration of old and new at Studio Z. “Early Inspirations: A Neighborly Collaboration” will feature newly composed music for Flying Forms’ baroque instruments plus new works for Zeitgeist inspired by music of the Renaissance and Baroque.

The program includes a new work for solo harpsichord and electronics commissioned by Flying Forms’ Tami Morse, plus music for baroque instruments by Minnesota composers Abbie Betinis, Kirsten Broberg and Asako Hirabayashi. Zeitgeist will perform Scott Miller’s Consortia, based on works by English Renaissance composers William Byrd and John Jenkins, James Holdman’s A Gondola Evades Us, based on the music of Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, Kepler’s Dream by J. David Moore, and Justin Rubin’s The armed man should be feared… and other lessons from the Renaissance. Early Inspirations: A Neighborly Collaboration: May 17-18 at 7:30pm and May 19 at 2pm; Studio Z, 275 East Fourth St. Suite 200, St. Paul; $10; tickets available here. Flying Forms

Zeitgeist