Songwriting and Soundscapes
Monday through Friday, August 12 – 16 @ 1-4 p.m.
Cost: $125 ($100 for M members)
This is a 5-day workshop | Ages 13 – 17
Join artists Lady Midnight and Mischa Kegan as they breakdown sonic worlds to explore basic songwriting composition and structure. Work with sound production applications, hardware gadgets, sampling, various instrumentation, and your voice to create original works, ranging from atmospheric, experimental soundscapes to contemporary pop. Youth are encouraged (but not required) to bring any musical equipment, instruments, or device that makes sounds they’d like to create with. This workshop will meet and take place at the M, with the exception of one field trip day to the YMCA Best Buy Teen Tech Center, approximately 1.5 blocks from the museum.
Scholarships are available on request for half and full tuition on a first come, first served basis. Classes are free at the M for Native community members. Contact info@mmaa.org or call (651) 797-2571 for more information.
Teaching artist Lady Midnight is a vocalist and performance artist who draws upon her multidisciplinary background in visual art, dance, and Afro-indigenous roots to create work that timelessly reflects our collective lives. Lady Midnight is one half of the group Parables of Neptune, a duo with Afrokeys (former keyboardist of Atmosphere), which was named “Best Twin Cities Vocalist of 2017” by City Pages. As Lady Midnight, she has recorded with international touring artists Bon Iver, P.O.S., Brother Ali, as well as performed with internationally acclaimed icons Common, Moby, Andra Day, and Aloe Blacc, among others. Lady Midnight has dedicated her life to using the arts as a power for change and confronting trauma.
Teaching artist Mischa Kegan is an artist/musician and youth worker in Minneapolis. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Arts in 2008, where he focused on printmaking and sculpture. After college, he moved to Chicago and continued to develop his artistic practice. He also became politicized. He traveled to Seoul, South Korea where he taught English for over a year and confirmed his love of working with young people. Upon arriving back in Minneapolis, he worked as cook, a screenprinter, a teaching artist, and organized with Community Action Against Racism. He also connected with the Walker Art Center through an internship in the Education Department that eventually developed into a full-time coordinator position with the Walker’s teen program (which he was a part of as a high school student). He continues to work and create as an artist and focus on social change through youth work in his new position managing the Best Buy Teen Tech Center through the St. Paul Downtown YMCA.