Today, Liquid Music — the “extraordinary” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) producer of special projects in contemporary music that “melds genres and blows minds” (Minnesota Public Radio) — announces an expansive 2024 fall season. The upcoming season features epochal creative minds debuting powerful and innovative new works at events throughout Liquid Music’s Minneapolis hometown as well as in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Paris, and the scenic landscapes of Southern Utah.

Headlining the announcement is a 2025 project in development from “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century” (The New Yorker), the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams’ Crossing Open Ground — an epic outdoor work befitting Adams’ visionary oeuvre to be set in Southern Utah. Ahead of this singular experience, Liquid Music will introduce the artistic team with live music by the musicians and John Luther Adams, and insights on the work’s vision for the uniquely inspiring environment.

Adams is in elite company, with other performances featuring the likes of Moor Mother, “the poet laureate of the apocalypse” (Pitchfork); the GRAMMY-winning producer and instrumentalist Josh Johnson, who’s collaborated with luminaries from Meshell Ndegeocello and Makaya McCraven to Harry Styles and The Red Hot Chili Peppers; the “dramatic, meticulous, and gothic” (The New York Times) composer and video artist Emily Wells; and many more from the cutting edge of the ever-expanding world of new music.

Additionally, Liquid Music has joined forces with the “original, vivid, reckless” (LA Times) ensemble Alarm Will Sound for Sun Dogs, a series that brings together inspired composer and filmmaker pairs to create short-format films with new music for live orchestra, exploring how stories can be told (both musically and visually) from equal footing.

This series will feature composers Dev Hynes, Rafiq Bhatia, Aroof Aftab, and Daniel Wohl working with filmmakers Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mati Diop & Manon Lutanie, and Josephine Decker. Sun Dogs screenings are listed below, more details here.

November 18-19: Sun Dogs at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn
November 21: Sun Dogs at Northrop, Minneapolis
November 23: Sun Dogs at CAP (UCLA), Los Angeles

It’s a massive season for Liquid Music, and one that heralds the ongoing health and ingenuity of contemporary music and arts programming. Says Liquid Music founder and artistic director Kate Nordstrum: “These three months are a microcosm of what Liquid Music does best: producing new sound experiences, supporting inspired collaborations, and developing site-specific projects. We always seek growth and delight for both artists and audiences, and to share this work in such unique contexts — from the Chaillot to the Utah desert — is a gift.”

Liquid Music Fall 2024 Season Programming (listed):
September 12: Trever Hagen & Josh Berg: Terminal Habitat Collapse (work in progress showing)
September 14: Moor Mother: The Great Bailout (U.S. premiere)
September 21: Emily Wells: Regards To The End (reimagined for Chaillot Expérience)
September 27: Josh Johnson: Unusual Object (Minneapolis debut)
October 7: Kit Downes: Southern Bodies (with Bill Frisell) (world premiere)
November 2: Crossing Open Ground collective: an introduction 
Nov 18-23: Sun Dogs (east and west coast premieres)

The full Fall 2024 season is detailed sequentially below.

(Photo courtesy of Liquid Music)

Thursday, September 12 at Northrop Rehearsal Studio, Minneapolis
Trever Hagen & Josh Berg: Terminal Habitat Collapse
A Quadraphonic Sound Experience
Presented by Liquid Music and Northrop
Created by GRAMMY-nominated composer-performer-writer Trever Hagen (Bon Iver, Mouse On Mars) and GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Josh Berg (Mac Miller, Kanye West), Terminal Habitat Collapse sonically narrates the Anthropocene. Performed in quadraphonic sound and featuring live performance and electronic mixing, this three-act composition presents an immersive soundscape of ecological change that activates a collective psycho-somatic response to the complete collapse of human habitat.

(Photo by Ebru Yildiz)

Saturday, September 14 at McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Moor Mother: The Great Bailout (U.S. premiere)
Presented by Walker Art Center in partnership with Liquid Music
Moor Mother’s (Camae Ayewa’s) incendiary, blistering new song cycle confronts colonialism, slavery, and commerce in Great Britain, and their historical parallels in the United States. Nodding to jazz, hip-hop, and Beat poetry, The Great Bailout springs from Ayewa’s wide-ranging practice of art and activism. Layers of instruments, voices, and electronics coalesce in this live rendition, performed with a hand-picked, seven-piece ensemble including composer and multi-instrumentalist Angel Bat Dawid, bassist and guitarist Melvin Gibbs, and revered Minneapolis musician Douglas Ewart.

(Photo by Karli Efinger / Scott Carr)

Saturday, September 21 at Chaillot théâtre national de la danse, Paris
Emily Wells: Regards To The End reimagined for Chaillot Expérience
Presented by Studio Dimitri Chamblas and Liquid Music
At the invitation of choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, Liquid Music has selected visionary composer, producer, and video artist Emily Wells — “a master of blending the worlds of classical and electronics” (NPR) — to expand upon her 2022 album Regards to the End as part of Studio Dimitri Chamblas’s Chaillot Expérience. This work honors dance while centering music, recognizing both as vehicles to understanding and problem solving. For this performance, Wells will be joined by composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist Darian Donovan Thomas for select songs.

(Photo by Robbie Jeffers)

Friday, September 27 at Berlin, Minneapolis
Josh Johnson: Unusual Object
Presented by Liquid Music and Berlin
Los Angeles-based saxophonist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and GRAMMY Award-winning producer Josh Johnson (also of the acclaimed proto-trance quintet SML) makes his Minneapolis debut with a solo performance inviting listeners into a fantastical sonic realm of futuristic jazz. Johnson says his latest record, Unusual Object (Northern Spy Records), “is a development and documentation of a more personal world of sound.” It blends processed saxophone, subtle samples, and grooves that offer an elegant, dreamlike quality with hints of cyberpunk.

(Photo courtesy of Liquid Music)

Friday, October 4 at Northrop, Minneapolis
Kit Downes: Southern Bodies (world premiere)
With Bill Frisell and Musicians of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Presented by Liquid Music and Northrop
Kit Downes, BBC Jazz Award winner and Mercury Music Award nominee, is a master keyboardist whose boundless musical curiosity has led to genre-defying collaborations with performers and composers from Squarepusher to Sam Amidon. Legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell — ”one of the most important and pioneering musicians at work today” (Irish Times) — joins him for the world premiere of Southern Bodies featuring Northrop’s historic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ. Rounding out the group is a small ensemble of virtuoso string players from The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for a one-night only performance that tests what the organ can and should be.

(Artwork by Andrea Hyde)

Saturday, November 2 at Center for the Arts at Kayenta, Ivins, UT
Crossing Open Ground collective: an introduction
Music by John Luther Adams, Christopher Rountree, Sidney Hopson, Nathalie Joachim, CJ Camerieri and Trever Hagen
Produced by Liquid Music
Presented by Center for the Arts at Kayenta
On Friday, October 25, 2025, environmentalist composer John Luther Adams will present Crossing Open Ground, an outdoor work for winds, brass and percussion that offers an opportunity to rediscover and reconsecrate place — an invitation to listen to the older, deeper resonances beneath our feet. In the stunning landscape of Southern Utah, Liquid Music seeks to honor Adams with a concert fitting to his singular vision and natural world inspiration.

Guided by music director Christopher Rountree (of Wild Up), choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, and powerhouse section leaders Sidney Hopson (percussion), Nathalie Joachim (winds), C.J. Camerieri (brass), and Trever Hagen (brass), an acoustic ensemble of 36 local musicians will perform the work amid the elements of the Southern Utah desert at a location TBA.

Ahead of the singular Crossing Open Ground experience, Liquid Music introduces the artistic team to the Kayenta community with works by the musicians and John Luther Adams, hosted by Rountree. Liquid Music artistic director Kate Nordstrum will share insights on the development of Crossing Open Ground for the uniquely inspiring environment of southwestern Utah.

(Photos courtesy of Liquid Music)

Mon-Tue, November 18-19 at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn
Thu, November 21 at Northrop, Minneapolis
Sat, November 23 at CAP UCLA, Los Angeles
Sun Dogs: Filmmaker and Composer Pairings With Alarm Will Sound
Music by Devonté Hynes, Arooj Aftab, Daniel Wohl and Rafiq Bhatia
Films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Josephine Decker, Mati Diop and Manon Lutanie

Sun Dogs brings together inspired composer and filmmaker pairs to create short-format films with new music for live orchestra, exploring how stories can be told (both musically and visually) from equal footing. These singular films are accompanied by the “unusually versatile, reliably exhilarating new-music ensemble” (The New York Times) Alarm Will Sound, with newly-arranged scores for the group. An atmospheric phenomenon created by refracted light, a sun dog is striking proof that, when natural conditions are right, familiar elements can shift the way we see the world. The series’ prismatic collaborations similarly allow us glimpses at another realm.

Program:
Prelude: Old Friend*
Composed by Daniel Wohl

On Blue
Rafiq Bhatia, composer
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, filmmaker

Naked Blue
Devonté Hynes, composer
Mati Diop & Manon Lutanie, co-directors

Rise, Again
Arooj Aftab & Daniel Wohl, co-composers
Josephine Decker, filmmaker

*Included in the Minneapolis program at Northrop only

Rise, Again, Naked Blue, and On Blue were commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and FotoFocus. Support for new arrangements was made possible by Tim and Calli Sullivan, Dr. Thomas von Sternberg and Eve Parker. Old Friend by Daniel Wohl was commissioned by Liquid Music and Northrop.