The Bakken Trio chamber ensemble mixes it up with dance, theater and percussion this season in its new venue, the gorgeous Antonello Hall in MacPhail Center for the Arts (501 Second Street in downtown Minneapolis near the Mill City Museum and the Guthrie Theater). The 30-year old chamber music group imaginatively uses its new format of curator-designed music experiences to forge an eclectic series bursting with flavor and sensation.

This year's Bakken concerts push out chamber music boundaries by the inclusion of actors and dancers into the chamber music experience. We are excited to take our theatrical production of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat, led by violinist Stephanie Arado and actor Steven Epp, into many schools before our MacPhail performance. Judy Lin's concert mixes percussion and pianos in repertoire that ranges from the sly Lounge Lizards to the virtuosic Bartok Music for Two Pianos and Percussion. Mina Fisher chose to combine two post-World War II events that helped assuage and transcend the pain of the war — the composition of Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time and the creation of a Japanese dance technique called butoh — to highlight her program of intertwined music and dance.

Each concert experience reflects by its unique theme, repertoire and preferred musicians, the personal vision of its artist/curator. Our new format allows the Trio's devoted audience to see The Bakken Trio members in a new light, and attracts audiences intrigued by a musical experience without parallel, intimate yet unconstrained. A premier chamber ensemble in the Twin Cities, The Bakken Trio won the prestigious McKnight Artist Fellowship in 2003 and its new music initiatives have been funded by subito grants from the American Composers Forum. October's performance of L'Histoire du Soldat is funded by a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. The Bakken Trio's CD's are available at our web-site www.BakkenTrio.org or at Barnes and Noble.

Stephanie Arado, Judy Lin and Mina Fisher invite you to join them for a wonderful new season of rarely-heard works as they continue the Trio's tradition of intriguing music in a welcoming atmosphere of intimacy and emotional appeal.