Gathering Sound
Friday, Oct 2, 6 - 9:30 p.m
Sundin Hall | 1531 Hewitt Ave
We’re excited to announce Gathering Sound, a special evening of music, poetry and sound in community with music by Artu Duo and Debbie Briggs Vintage Jazz, a hybrid poetry and music performance by The Sonoglyph Collective performing with poets Davi Gray and Halee Kirkwood, and community singing led by Midway Songs of Hope. Audience participation is strongly encouraged!
6 pm Artu Duo
6:45 Midway Songs of Hope
7 pm Debbie Briggs
7:45 Midway Songs of Hope
8 pm The Sonoglyph Collective
Midway Songs of Hope
This group of Midway neighbors came together this winter during Operation Metro surge as a way to cope with unbearable feelings of fear, grief, powerlessness, and determination. They sang songs of hope and resistance throughout the neighborhood to connect, release their feelings, and share joy with neighbors and passersby, including people rolling down car windows in negative wind chills to listen to them sing. Singing together was also a way to keep watch out for neighbors in need for a brief period of time each day.
Artu Duo
Now in their 16th year as Artu Duo, pianist Garret Ross and cellist Ruth Marshall are based in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN, and enjoy concertizing and teaching together both on tour and at home.
After forming in 2011, Artu Duo completed a residency course on the Beethoven Sonatas and Variations for Cello and Piano at the Banff Centre in Canada. In 2012, Artu Duo traveled to the Aldeburgh Festival in England, where they completed a residency course on the chamber music of Brahms and Schumann. These immersive experiences sparked a deep love of the music of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann in Artu Duo, which has been the foundational repertoire for them ever since- not only as a duo, but as a piano trio, quartet, and quintet, when joined by colleagues. From that foundation, Artu Duo has explored and championed an incredibly broad repertoire, including canonic works, contemporary and rarely-heard works, and particularly music written by women, people of color, and living composers.
Artu Duo has toured extensively in the United States, playing concerts in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon, Montana, Washington, New York, California, Minnesota, and Louisiana. In both 2013 and 2016, Artu Duo played on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, which was broadcast live on WFMT. In 2016, they gave their debut at Carnegie Hall, playing a complete program in the Weill Recital Hall. They have performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto as soloists with the Winona Symphony Orchestra (2021) and the Wartburg Community Symphony (2022).
Mr. Ross and Ms. Marshall are both committed teachers and have enjoyed giving masterclasses and performing outreach concerts while on tour. Artu Duo community and educational performances have been presented by the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Conservatory, the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra, the Mineral Point Chamber Music Festival, Minnesota Public Radio, and through the Britt Festival Education and Engagement resident artists program. Additionally, Artu Duo has given collegiate-level masterclasses at the Apollo Music Festival, the University of Louisiana, the State University of New York at New Paltz, Indiana State University, and Humboldt State University.
Debbie Briggs Vintage Jazz shines a light on timeless jazz hits from The Great American Songbook from the 1920s -1960s. In addition to being an excellent swing dance band, Debbie has been featured at the TC Jazz Festival, the MN State Fair, the Mall of America, Jazz 88 and KFAI-sponsored events, Mia, and countless other venues and community events across the state. Debbie's powerful and versatile vocals are backed by a lively band that will keep hearts smiling and toes tapping well after the show is over. Appropriate for all ages.
Debbie Briggs Vintage Jazz
The Sonoglyph Collective
The Sonoglyph Collective fuses poetry, song, storytelling, and spoken word with improvisational music in unique, spontaneous performances. Their work draws on influences as diverse as the West African griot tradition, the epic Finnish folk-poetry of the Kalevala, Irish sean-nós singing, torch songs, the blues, classic rock, and free jazz. They have given performances and workshops throughout the Twin Cities, at venues and events including the Fringe Festival's Beyond the Box series on Nicollet Mall, the Greenway Glow, the Blue Harbor Center for the Arts, the East Side Freedom Library, the Wolf House, the Saint Paul Public Library, the Normandale Writing Festival, and the University of Minnesota's Witness Creative Writing Project.
Davi Gray and Halee Kirkwood
Poets Halee Kirkwood and Davi Gray will be performing as guests with Sonoglyph Collective.
Davi Gray (she/they) is a queer, trans, nonbinary poet, writer, performer, playwright, visual artist, podcast and film producer, activist, and abolitionist. They live in Bde Óta Othúŋwe (Minneapolis) on unceded Dakhóta lands, where she works through the ReEntry Lab to connect writers and other artists leaving incarceration with literary and arts communities ready to receive them.
Gray has work published in Poetry, Water~Stone Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rogue Agent, NonBinary Review, and elsewhere. She can often be found performing around the Twin Cities, where she staged the world premiere and Minnesota Fringe Festival premiere of her one-woman show, This Body, This Fruit; she’s also a two-time finalist in the Midwest Poetry Mash-Up slam poetry competition. Gray has had two films selected for regional film festivals (one solo project and one collaboration); was a finalist for the Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellowship in 2025; has been awarded grants by the Minnesota State Arts Board, the City of Minneapolis, and others; and produces the podcast Into a Darker Wilderness, sponsored by Milkweed Editions. Her first poetry collection, This Body, This Fruit, a finalist for the 2025 Louise Bogan Award for Excellence in Poetry, is forthcoming from Trio House Press in February 2027.
You can find more on Gray and her work, including publications and upcoming events and performances, at DaviGray.com.
Photo by Maggie Myers with MaggieInMpls.
Halee Kirkwood is a poet, teaching artist, and bookseller living in Minneapolis, MN. Originally from the western tip of Lake Superior, they are committed to telling the stories of the Upper Midwest in all its complexity and beauty, and to uplifting queer, working class, and BIPOC storytellers and poets who call this place home. Their debut poetry book, To Think of a Match, is forthcoming with Northwestern University Press through their Curbstone imprint in March ’27.
Kirkwood is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and has received fellowships and grants from In-Na-Po (Indigenous Nations Poetry), The Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series program, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. They’ve received residencies from the Anderson Center and Tin House. Writing in community is core to their practice, and are glad to have called these places home.
The winner of the 2022 James Welch Prize, published with Poetry Northwest, Kirkwood has work published in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, December Magazine, Ecotone Magazine, Gulf Coast Journal, Water~Stone Review, Poem-A-Day, and others. Kirkwood earned their MFA in poetry from Hamline University.
They are a direct descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and center the seven grandfather teachings in their teaching process. Kirkwood has taught with Hamline University, The Loft Literary Center, the Institute for American Indian Arts, Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts, and others.