Minnesota Music Profiles
Series produced by KBEM

Image by: Tim Nyberg (Octane Creative)
KBEM logo
Each item in the series tells how a musicians is inspired, how s/he works, their goals and intents for their work; in general, how each gets motivation and follows through with a creative project.
Each Minnesota Music Profile focuses on a musician or group. Listeners learn some of the behind-the-scenes stuff related to the creative process. Programs in the series are under 10 minutes in length. They can be run anytime because they are not time sensitive. These pieces are especially appropriate when subjects perform in the areas served by given radio stations.
338 Pieces
Order by:
Newest First |
Oldest First
Joan Hutton plays in many musical settings. We’ve known Joan through her work in the Ancia Saxophone Quartet for example, playing modern classical ...
- Added: Aug 27, 2017
- Length: 08:00
Minneapolis Jazz singer Rhonda Laurie is all about emotion. In a recent conversation with Phil Nusbaum, Rhonda told Phil picking songs and interpre...
- Added: Aug 23, 2017
- Length: 08:00
The Twin Cities Hot Club has been in business for over a decade. Over time, the group has learned that playing for dancing and for concerts and spe...
- Added: Aug 05, 2017
- Length: 08:00
The Minnesota Hard Bop Collective exists to preserve the jazz era of hard bop, from the 1950s onward. It explores not only the music of the artists...
- Added: Aug 04, 2017
- Length: 08:00
The world knows Laura Caviani as a jazz pianist. She’s recorded 7 CDs including some original. Work, leads bands, and tours as members of the bands...
- Added: Aug 03, 2017
- Length: 08:00
What’s it like to be a member of the No Man’s String Band? Well, you can be kind of busy playing for one thing. When you talk to band members like ...
- Added: Aug 02, 2017
- Length: 08:00
The Jana Nyberg Five. Jana leads jazz groups, she teaches music, she leads workshops, she is experienced at multiple instruments, and of course she...
- Added: Aug 01, 2017
- Length: 08:00
The Minnesota Mandolin Orchestra has 25 mandolins and plays a combination of specially composed mandolin music and tunes everybody has heard. Lon H...
- Added: Jul 27, 2017
- Length: 07:59
Do you happen to know of the Execs big band? When the group was founded in 1965, it was composed of Twin Cities business people. So the name Execs ...
- Added: Jul 26, 2017
- Length: 08:00
The Roe Family Singers is a real musical phenomenon. It’s not only that they play really old music for modern audiences. After modest beginnings a ...
- Added: Jul 25, 2017
- Length: 08:01
The leader of the Minnesota Jazz Orchestra is a guy named Craig Thrane. As is the case with many big band players, Craig was bitten by the Big Ban...
- Added: Jul 14, 2017
- Length: 05:00
Lila Ammons. Hers is a prominent jazz family. Her grandfather, Albert, was a noted boogie woogie piano player, and her uncle was sax man Gene Ammon...
- Added: Jul 13, 2017
- Length: 08:00
Switched at Birth. The group plays a seemingly an ever-increasing variety of songs on the Bluegrass instruments. They’ve had a lot of fun with this...
- Added: Jul 11, 2017
- Length: 07:15
Every once in a while you learn of a group that really is different than all others. Such is the case with Captain Gravitone and the String Theory ...
- Added: Jul 07, 2017
- Length: 07:21
Paul Barry (“Berry”) is a veteran blues band leader. Among the things that he has picked up over the years is that many people like the blues. But,...
- Added: Jun 30, 2017
- Length: 07:46
Lila Ammons sung at a lot of great places big and small, in both the US and Europe. You might say it comes natural to her. Lila is part of an accom...
Bought by WAMC Northeast Public Radio
- Added: Jun 29, 2017
- Length: 08:04
- Purchases: 1
Joe Kopel. If there is anybody with songwriting in his DNA, it is Joe. As a kid he would write his own lyrics to existing songs. By high school, he...
- Added: Jun 22, 2017
- Length: 06:25
Warren Thomas Fenzi. He’s a young songwriter writes from his own experiences. Warren plays with other members of a collective, and the members back...
- Added: Jun 22, 2017
- Length: 08:08
AJ Srubas is a young country musician from Minneapolis. But “Country” does not quite tell the story of AJ’s expertise, as different types of countr...
- Added: Jun 16, 2017
- Length: 07:40
Regina Marie Williams. When she sings a song, it is a combination of honoring the great singers that came before her, and advancing her own style o...
- Added: Jun 10, 2017
- Length: 07:48