If Classical music is dead, no one told the sold out audience at this evening’s SongSLAM. Not a seat was free at the Icehouse in Minneapolis, where lovers of music and poetry sipped libations and listened to the world premiere of six new art songs.

The event, the Minneapolis 8th Annual SongSLAM, was organized by the Source Song Festival and originally scheduled for January 2026. After ICE agents swept into Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge, the concert and audience-voting-competition was pushed back, and in its final incarnation comprised the kickoff event for SSF’s 13th Annual Source Song Festival.

By audience vote, the winning teams were:

• First Prize: Composer Peter J. Durow with Kathryn Rupp and Dan Wanamaker, for “And the Birds Continued Singing”, setting a poem by Reg Huston.
• Second Prize: Composer Sam Mason with Casey Rafn and Caitlin Glastonbury, for “Rain Has Fallen”, setting a poem by James Joyce.
• Third Prize: Composer Jodi Goble with Victoria Erickson, for “Lights Out”, setting a poem by Edward Thomas.

The evening soirée was hosted by Bradley Greenwald, who regaled audiences during voting with a special one-man performance of “Rock Island”, the opening song of the musical The Music Man.

The Source Song Festival continues August 2-7, 2026:

https://www.sourcesongfestival.org/2026-festival-events

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Twin Cities Arts Reader

The Twin Cities Arts Reader is an arts and lifestyles magazine whose coverage examines arts and selected activities in the state of Minnesota and across the country. It provides in-depth, critical arts coverage and reaches more than 600,000 readers per year.

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