The World’s Music.
Here.
Upcoming Events
There’s nothing like live music!
Check out all of The Cedar’s upcoming concerts and events on our calendar at the link below.
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Learn more about our flagship grant-funded programs like Global Roots Festival and The Cedar Commissions.
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Live and direct from Burkina Faso on their first ever tour of the USA, The Cedar Presents Baba Commandant and The Mandingo Band!
Touring on the success of their latest LP, Sonbonbela (Sublime Frequencies), Baba’s voice impresses with its gravel and grit, showcasing a range that is ancient and defiant in equal measure. The Mandingo Band brings a non-stop hit parade of afro-beat bangers destined to light our dance floor ablaze!
Tom Paxton has become a voice of his generation, addressing issues of injustice and inhumanity, laying bare the absurdities of modern culture and celebrating the tenderest bonds of family, friends, and community. Tonight, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner and folk icon teams up with the Grammy winning singer/songwriter duo The DonJuans - Don Henry & Jon Vezner for a special performance on The Cedar stage.
First Avenue Presents Who? Weekly: The Podcast is back on tour with an all new, all Who live show! Join hosts Bobby and Lindsey to live, love and laugh LIVE and in-person alongside the Wholigans. We’ll dig into our favorite Daily Mail headlines, dive deeper into the lives of culture’s thirstiest D-listers and maybe once and for all figure out exactly what Rita Ora’s up to... Don’t miss out on this EXCLUSIVE chance to affirm your parasocial relationships!
We turn our projector on and focus the light on September being National Recovery Month by offering a free film, "The Forgotten Ones". Generation Hope's groundbreaking documentary sheds light on how the opioid epidemic has impacted the East African community specifically here in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood.
Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer John Craigie adapts moments of solitude into stories perfectly suited for old Americana fiction anthologies. Instead of leaving them on dog-eared pages, he projects them widescreen in flashes of simmering soul and folk eloquence. John returns to The Cedar stage with special guest, Taylor Rae.
Night one of Global Roots Festival kicks off with Ana Everling and House of Waters! Originally from Moldova, but now Chicago-based, Ana Everling will open the festival with her haunting singing, sharing music inspired by Romanian folklore. To close the night, House of Waters takes the stage with a wildly indescribable fusion of genres and musical traditions the world over. With Max ZT revolutionizing the hammer dulcimer and Moto Fukushima constantly innovating on bass, don’t miss night one as they share songs from their new album due out this fall via Snarky Puppy’s GroundUP label.
Born in Montreal of Haitian parents, Waahli joins us for a special, intimate gathering at Alliance Française. He’ll play a few solo acoustic
Night two of Global Roots Festival features Madalitso Band and Ethiocolor! Originally Malawi street buskers, Madalitso Band blends Chichewa and Ngoni ceremonial music into irresistible bliss, getting audiences moving and grooving to the guitar, suitcase bass drum, and babatoni. Hailing from Addis Ababa, Ethiocolor (led by the legendary Melaku Belay) share ground-shaking Ethiopian Azmari culture through song and dance. Though we’ve had Fendika and Melaku before, we’re excited to welcome the full Ethiocolor ensemble for the first time! It’s impossible to tear yourself away once Belay leaps into motion, with Ethiocolor laying down intoxicating funk grooves on traditional instruments; it’s palpable joy in every second, when it’s clear everyone on stage and around it are exactly where they want to be.
Night three of Global Roots Festival will close out with La Perla and Waahli! La Perla is a trio of Colombian women creating bombastic, percussive music with tight vocal harmonies by weaving gaitas, hand-drums and folk singing together. To wrap our festival, Montreal-based Waahli will take the stage, mixing Haitian influences from his early years into his tri-lingual hip-hop, rapping in French, English, and Creole. Come dance to their irresistible grooves and celebrate a lovely finale to this year’s festival!
On Friday, September 29th we celebrate the release of Shadowlands, a stunning, genre-bending collection of songs that combines the warmth and beauty of S. Carey’s aesthetic with the improvisational, spontaneous nature of John Raymond’s. The music ranges from intimate and meditative to soaring and anthemic, with electric moments of musical interplay throughout. It’s the kind of collaboration that feels as if it were years in the making. Opening the night of great friendship and musical collaboration, is the stunning Hemma.
As summer comes to a close and we welcome in autumnal happenings — the start of school, Labor Day weekend celebrations, and Global Roots Festival — we also welcome a wonderful new team member to The Cedar Cultural Center. John Marks is joining us as The Cedar’s Operations Director: his first day is September 5, 2023!
Check out our 2022 Annual Report celebrating our 33rd revolution. We are proud of all that we did and we’re excited to share this with you.
In late April, The Cedar’s Sr. Box Office and Development Operations Manager MJ Gilmore sat down for a Zoom interview with the emotive and storied Ethiopian-Israeli musician Gili Yalo in advance of his forthcoming show at The Cedar on June 1! MJ was joined by Abreham Tsegaye and Jote Mulat — owners of Café Jote, an Ethiopian coffee shop just a block away from The Cedar. Faysal Abraham, former Cedar Operations Director, also stopped in for the interview.
Calling in from sunny Los Angeles, Gili shared vivid details of his life through this interview. He talked about the story of his name, the first cover he ever did, and the significance of his return to Minneapolis.
The Cedar is pleased to announce that we have added new staff and board members! These staffing additions are aligned with an organization-wide visioning session we did in October 2022, coalescing our hopes for the direction of The Cedar and distilling them into actionable items: one of which was building new audiences for the amazing artists we present here.
Our sixth and final spotlight interview in this year’s cohort is with Sophia Deutsch (she/her). Sophia is a cellist and composer. Her creation for the 2022-2023 Cedar Commissions, Vis Vitae, is an exploration into our planet as a sonic landscape. Simultaneously charmed and overwhelmed by the vast sources of inspiration in the concept of ‘nature,’ Sophia embraces the heavy weight of it by trusting her body’s interpretation of these earthly phenomena. She spoke with Twin Cities music writer Youa Vang about the legacy of earth-inspired music, the restriction and subsequent freedom provided by classical training, and the wisdom of a mentor.
Our fifth spotlight interview in this year’s cohort is with Biaban (Aram Kavoossi, he/him). Biaban is an electronic musician and beatmaker. His new work for the 2022-2023 Cedar Commissions Oil and Dust is a sobering look at the omnipresent nature of oil. Inspired by the novel Cyclonopedia by Reza Negaristani, Biaban explores the narrative device of oil as sentient and ravenous, and all the while, claiming humans as dependents. Biaban spoke with Twin Cities music writer Youa Vang about the history of oil in Iran, channeling the characterization of this substance into a sound(s), and gratitude for collaboration.
