"the intersection of free improvisation and the spirit of punk-infused rock n’ roll" - Glide Magazine

Marc Ribot released Map of a Blue City on May 23, 2025 via New West Records. Most renowned as a wildly inventive guitarist who has collaborated with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, John Zorn, Wilson Pickett, Marianne Faithfull, Caetano Veloso, Solomon Burke, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Neko Case, among many, many others, Map of a Blue City features Ribot’s imaginative playing and leads to what may be his definitive statement as an instrumentalist, as a songwriter, and even as a singer.

After a successful run of shows to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the store, Extreme Noise is back for one blow out show at the Cedar. This year’s show features long running Tokyo legends LiFE, alongside Blazing Eye, Destruct, Alement, HOPE?, and Giallo.

The Cedar is back for our third year with two nights of entertainment at the Minnesota State Fair's International Bazaar! We will feature ALMA ANDINA on Wednesday, August 27th and BRASS SOLIDARITY on Thursday, August 28th, 2025.

The Cedar is back for our third year with two nights of entertainment at the Minnesota State Fair's International Bazaar! We will feature ALMA ANDINA on Wednesday, August 27th and BRASS SOLIDARITY on Thursday, August 28th, 2025.

Yalla Drum brings music from the Middle East to life through dynamic, group performances. Their shows are lively, interactive, and rooted in shared groove and connection. With call-and-response, group drumming, and spontaneous moments, they invite audiences to listen, clap along, and feel part of the experience.

The Summer at The Cedar series wraps up with the Twin Cities' own, UKRAINIAN VILLAGE BAND! 

Summer Cypher is back on the block! For our 4th Annual Cedar Cypher, we will be joining Cedar Fest for an Open Streets cultural activation!

Get ready for a night of island energy as the Pan‑handlers Steel Drum Band brings the Caribbean heat to Minneapolis! Since 2014, this powerhouse community band has been thrilling crowds with their infectious rhythms and genre-spanning grooves. And now, they're turning it up a notch with their first-ever live CD recording featuring the vocals of local sensation Dennis Curley!

Summer at The Cedar #6 with one of our favorite funky brass bands, THE BURROUGHS - leaders of radical communion on dance floors. 

Summer at The Cedar #5 with COMBO DAGUERRE: Original Franco-Latin Chanson

Summer at The Cedar #4 - The Buddha Prince: In Concert. Celebrating His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday with music, dance, and storytelling!

Drummer & Composer Abinnet Berhanu’s Ahndenet አንድነት (meaning: Unity) pays respect to Ethiopian folk, pop, and instrumental music, exploring the unique musical cultures that span northern and southern Ethiopia. 

Join in once again on the Twin Cities long-standing experimental tradition, Noise Party. Volume 11 features six more artists from the fields of ambient, drone, noise, and experimental styles of music.

All of this with a background of live experimental visuals to guide the way.

Shamarr Allen is the True Orleans Experience!

U.S. Cultural Ambassador and "musician Shamarr Allen played the National Anthem for President Obama, traveled the world for the State Department and lived in Atlanta for three years, but there’s only one place he calls home: New Orleans." - Forbes

Summer at The Cedar #2 - Live from Colombia, the heir to cumbia, YEISON LANDERO and his band!

The Cedar is honored to welcome MARYNA KRUT back, during this critical moment. With her gorgeous voice and bandura, she brings the story and culture of Ukraine to our stage. 

“Not only is she a virtuoso on her 65-string harp, but she has a voice from the heavens, covering all the colors of the human vocal rainbow, seemingly effortlessly.” - Banning Eyre, AFROPOP

Summer at The Cedar #1 with SINKANE - Soul with the rhythms of Sudan mixed with pop, funk, and JOY!

The Cedar is very excited to welcome 2x Grammy winning Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers with an opening set by Ethno USA on the Road band.

“The Grammy-winning group plays a revved-up version of Cajun music, shot through with punk energy and psychedelic fuzz.” - World Café

30 years into a prolific career as a genre and gender-defying songwriter, Melissa Ferrick continues to disrupt normative categorization. Indie, Alternative, Folk, Punk….Melissa Ferrick won’t be labeled. With disarming wit and raw vulnerability, every lyric in Ferrick’s immense catalog is an invitation to confession or catharsis.

Are you an early-career musical artist based in Minnesota? Apply to The Cedar Commissions, our flagship program for commissioning local emerging artists to write brand new music! This workshop will go through application basics, as well as tips for drafting your strongest application - Cedar staff will lead the workshop and are available for questions after.

"Peter Mulvey is a forthright singer and songwriter. He’s made a habit of mining emotion by sharing songs that avoid painting pretty pictures simply for the sake of wooing his listeners with an upward gaze. Yet it’s that very honesty that makes his music so compelling, given that it’s flush with realities that are often simply too difficult to avoid." — American Songwriter

TaikoArts Midwest Presents TaikoGROOVE, a concert dance party with Special Surprise Guests!

The Cedar is honored to debut Brazil-based Argentine composer and accordionist Alejandro Brittes. Interpreting chamamé, a music and dance genre forged from Baroque and Indigenous Guaraní influences of southern South America. Chamamé has been declared as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO."

Last seen here at The Cedar in 2010, Swedish world music icon Ale Möller returns to the US to perform with American roots music hero Bruce Molsky! The duo’s music is the joyful confluence of a wide swath of cultures through their unique lens on fiddle, banjo, guitar, flutes, and Ale’s own version of the mandola (which features six string courses, quarter tone frets and a sound unlike any other.) Their reunion really is a deep musical conversation between two old friends whose tunes and songs have so much to say, to bring people together and to shine light on the things we have in common.

Arkansauce calls forth melodies of the Ozark Mountains' rolling hills and raging rivers with their distinct blend of newgrass. Each member of the quartet sings lead and harmony parts as well as contributes to the lyrics, which offer authentic, intelligent songwriting with hard-hitting hooks - bending the rules and blurring the lines between bluegrass, folk, americana, with notes of country, blues, and funk.  Local old time/bluegrass project, Steam Machine kicks the night off!

Welcome. It’s a word The Arcadian Wild hold dear, an invitation to be present, to let your guard down, to share in something deep and divine and communal.

“No matter who you are or where you come from, that word just makes you breathe a little easier. When you feel welcome somewhere, you can be yourself, you can be open to whatever the space and the moment have to offer. That’s how we want people to experience these songs.” - The Arcadian Wild

Noise Party has returned. The beloved local showcase of ambient, drone, noise, and experimental music celebrates its 10th offering, bringing strange yet soothing sounds to The Cedar.
Vol. 10 will feature askSERPENT, Boy Dirt Car, MAKR AN ERIS, Sawtooth Witch, Sophia Deutsch, and White Dune performing thirty-minute uninterrupted unique sets and help create a tapestry of unique sound that will only exist within Noise Party Vol. 10. 

All of this with a background of live experimental visuals to guide the way.

We love ANA TIJOUX. We appreciate ANA TIJOUX: her voice, her heart, her outrage, her ART. The Cedar is incredibly honored to welcome Ana back to our stage - if you missed her incredible show in March 2024 - this is your opportunity - don't miss it!

Come experience Argentina’s leading rock band, El Mató A Un Policía Motorizado, who’s stopping by on their Super Terror World Tour, delivering their iconic rock fusion with Twin Cities bands: Los Outsiders, Malos Pasos, DJ Rey Azucar, and VJ Booscapes.