MPLS (imPulse)
  • Home
  • About
    • What is MPLS (imPulse)?
    • Meet Our Team
    • Past Repertoire
    • Join Our Board of Directors
    • Contact Us
  • Tickets + Events
    • imPulse Happy Hour: The Glory of Beer >
      • Tickets
    • Ben Frost: Cold Air Rises
    • Celebrating New Music
  • Support
  • Songbook Project
    • Commissioned Composers
  • Call For Scores

Singer Profile: Ian Cook

9/28/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Q&A with MPLS (imPulse) singer, Ian Cook. 

What is a fun fact about yourself?
In addition to doing music all the time, I also swing dance and I can juggle!

Tell us a little bit about your musical life!
I sing Tenor 1 in a lot of different choirs; I sing in MPLS (imPulse), Academy of Voices, National Lutheran Choir, my church choir, and recently sang with Pop Up Choir #3. I also play trombone, and in fact trombone was my main instrument through college. I occasionally sub in orchestras and play in musical pits. I also compose my own music, as well as doing professional music engraving for others. I've had performances of my music by several ensembles, including as far away as a music festival in Colorado.

This fall, MPLS (imPulse) is performing your piece, The White Heron, tell us about the piece and your inspiration.
The inspiration for The White Heron comes entirely from the text. The W.B. Yeats poem paints a very impressionistic image in my head. I envision a heron, a huge bird, standing still in a river. It should be trying to catch the fish around it, but instead it just stands there silently, not even noticing the fish as they leap past. The dramatic moment in the text is when, with this image of blurry, dreamlike motion surrounding it, the heron suddenly shivers. It is a simple text, and yet it invokes a surprisingly vivid image of this unexpected moment. The music that resulted includes a lot of text painting; the fish leap, the heron shivers, and the harmonies feel blurry and impressionistic, adding to the dreamlike setting of the poem.

Why did you decide to get involved with MPLS (imPulse)?
I really like the project-based model that MPLS (imPulse) uses. It's a unique model, and it allows a lot of really fantastic singers to come together without having to cram one more regular commitment into their already-full schedules, which means that it can bring together a level of talent that likely couldn't happen otherwise. I'm also a sucker for any ensemble that regularly performs as much new music as MPLS (imPulse) does; I wish it wasn't so rare for ensembles to have such a commitment to new music, and I want to be a part of any ensemble that does!

If you have a favorite music-themed joke or pun, what is it?
I can't stand an alberti bass in E minor… It really gives me the E-B-G-Bs!


Learn more about Ian and his compositions at ianacook.com
1 Comment
Andrew Kelly link
10/8/2022 02:55:03 am

Wait stand across enter late weight. Student wall list raise test election agency.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    November 2021
    October 2020
    September 2018
    September 2017
    June 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    August 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    News
    Reviews

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2014–2023  |  4320 Upton Ave N, Minneapolis, MN 55412  |  319.830.3021  | info@mplsimpulse.org
Sign up for our emails!
Picture
  • Home
  • About
    • What is MPLS (imPulse)?
    • Meet Our Team
    • Past Repertoire
    • Join Our Board of Directors
    • Contact Us
  • Tickets + Events
    • imPulse Happy Hour: The Glory of Beer >
      • Tickets
    • Ben Frost: Cold Air Rises
    • Celebrating New Music
  • Support
  • Songbook Project
    • Commissioned Composers
  • Call For Scores