FIRST FRIDAY CONCERT SERIES
First Friday of the month, September - May
7:00 PM
CARLISLE EVANS PECK
September 5th, 2025
Carlisle Evans Peck strives for the heart of human connection through his compositions and musical performance. Equally at home in a wooded glade or on a cabaret stage, his music conjures a melancholia of intense beauty. Like an acoustic ballet, his diligence & pain become a thing of dainty & powerful beauty. An evocative songwriter and passionate pianist, Carlisle weaves intricate mythologies of love, family, nature, and queerness.
THOMAS WALKER JR., Lute
and SARAH Jackson, Soprano
October 3rd, 2025
Thomas Walker, Jr. started classical guitar lessons at age 10. He became captivated by the fingerstyle work of Leo Kottke, John Fahey, & others and spent many years playing and composing in that style. He returned to classical music in college, studying both classical guitar and music theory. He bought his first lute in 1992 and began studies with Phillip Rukavina not long thereafter. Since then, Thomas has performed with Phillip, Ensemble Polaris, Consortium Carissimi, Sprezzatura, Lute2Viols, the Rose Ensemble, the Bold North Baroque Opera, and the Venere Lute Quartet, as well as with local lutenists Paul Berget and Edward Martin.
Sarah Jackson, a native of the Twin Cities, has been devoted to Early Music since falling in love with the music of Bach as a child. Since 2011, she has dedicated herself wholeheartedly to the Renaissance and Baroque literature for lute/theorbo and voice. She makes frequent appearances in music series across the Twin Cities, including the Lute Café, Twin Cities Early Music Festival, and Chamber at the Chapel. She has appeared with Consortium Carissimi, Aurora Ensemble, Glorious Revolution Baroque, and the Central Coast Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. Sarah is a graduate of St. Catherine University, and studied with master teacher Elizabeth Mannion.
MARY LOUISE KNUTSON
November 7th, 2025
Jazz pianist-composer Mary Louise Knutson has been called "one of the most exciting artists to happen to jazz piano in quite some time." Her warm, inviting tone, broad range of emotional expression, and distinctive compositions have brought her much recognition on the national music scene. Knutson performs, records, and tours with her group, the Mary Louise Knutson Trio, and freelances with area vocalists, notably Connie Evingson and Patty Peterson (and formerly with the late Debbie Duncan); and with a variety of instrumental groups including the JazzMN Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. From 2010-2018, Knutson toured with trumpeter Doc Severinsen, former bandleader for the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Check out her music on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, or Amazon Music.
TRIPLE FIDDLE
December 5th, 2025
Three powerhouse Minnesotan fiddlers — Rachel Calvert, Jackie Rae Daniels, and Maura Dunst — join forces to create Triple Fiddle: a collaboration of sensational triple fiddle harmonies and lusciously layered vocals. Backed by guitarist and singer-songwriter Hannah Hendrickson, this fiddle-forward trio presents soaring arrangements of originals and covers from honky tonk, swing, folk, and roots music traditions.
HEMMA
January 2nd, 2026
"From Bob Dylan and Trampled by Turtles to The Cactus Blossoms, Minnesota’s music scene has no shortage of great folk artists. And Hemma, the stage moniker of Hannah Hebl, is no exception." - Minnesota Monthly
Emerging artist Hemma comes from a family lineage of singers, and has spent the last decade carving her own path as a singer-songwriter in the Americana, folk and jazz scenes of the Midwest.
MAYA RADOVANLIJA and friends
February 6th. 2026
East European music for Classical guitar.
Maja has commissioned and performed works of numerous composers, both for solo guitar, guitar Duo, guitar-flute Duo, Minneapolis Guitar Quartet. Some of them are Aaron Travors, Don Freund, Clarice Assad, Dusan Bogdanovic, Voja Ivanovic and Leo Brouwer. Her special interest is contemporary music, and improvised music (in Balkan music style and free style)!
UNCLE KENNY
March 6th, 2026
A four-piece string band featuring some of the most talented pickers in the twin cities, Uncle Kenny performs a tasteful blend of bluegrass, old time, classic country, jazz, and whatever else they want! After a number of shared gigs and informal living room jams, Nate Baker (Daniels & Baker), Rachel Calvert (Barbaro, Triple Fiddle), Willie Christianson (Brotherhood of Birds, Ryan Gebhart), and Mike Hedding (Pistol Whippin’ Party Penguins, The Katey Bellville Band) decided they enjoyed playing together so much, it was time to form a proper band. Combining thoughtful, dynamic arrangements with blistering hot instrumentals and perfectly blended vocal harmonies, Uncle Kenny stays faithful to a traditional sound…with enough twists and turns to keep contemporary audiences on the edge of their seats.
JUSTIN SPENNER, Baritone
April 3rd, 2026
“A wild and anxious ride”(Star Tribune) - multi-genre baritone Justin Anthony Spenner is known for their captivating work that runs the gamut of opera, chamber music, experimental music, pop, and metal.
LADY SPRUCE
May 1st, 2026
Lady Spruce is a dynamic female group from Minneapolis, MN. Influenced in equal parts by 20th century Appalachia (Ola Belle) and contemporary Americana (I’m With Her), the group plays and sings original songs, traditional folk, instrumental medleys, and novel arrangements. They opened for Grammy-winning bluegrass artist Michael Cleveland in March 2020 and won 3rd place at the Minnesota State Fair Bands Contest in August 2019. The artistic aims of the group are empowerment of female artists, inventive string playing, and the education of young artists.