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Time to tell your northern MN story
A group from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design are spending the summer in residence in the city of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. It’s part of MCAD’s Greater Minnesota Arts Initiative (read more). Three artists are collecting stories — both face to face with people in northern Minnesota and online. They’re doing a contest of…
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Iron Range ethnic foods draw national attention
The NPR show America’s Test Kitchen shared a two-part series that writer Carolynn Purpura MacKay penned for Cook’s Magazine about two popular ethnic foods from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. She traveled to Hibbing last January to learn about the Italian spiced pork dish porketta and the eastern European dessert bread potica. (puh-TEET-za) It’s a very…
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Track the tall ships approaching Port of Duluth, MN
U.S. Brig Niagara arrives in 2010 – Dennis O’Hara, via Visit Duluth Like many in northern Minnesota, my family awaits the arrival of the “tall ships” later this month in the Port of Duluth on Lake Superior. These masted wooden ships were a huge hit in 2010 and hundreds of thousands of people are expected…
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Hibbing Jubilee marks summer’s halftime on the Range
This weekend brings the Hibbing Jubilee, this central Mesabi Iron Range city’s summer celebration of mines and pines (but don’t call it Mines and Pines because that was the old name and there are proprietary concerns). Hibbing is “the town that moved” for the iron mines, five miles south where they got arguably the most…
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Dylan lets music do the talking in his native Duluth, MN
Bob Dylan performs July 9, 2013 at Bayfront in Duluth. Iris Kolodji Last night Bob Dylan played his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota, with Wilco, My Morning Jacket and the Richard Thompson Trio. More than 7,000 people attended the show at Bayfront Festival Park, though there was capacity for up to 12,000. Despite my longtime Dylan…
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Dylan brings it back home in tonight’s Duluth show
A collection of Dylan books. We get a half dozen authors of Dylan books or documentaries visiting Hibbing every year. Martin Pulaski, Creative Commons license Tonight Bob Dylan and his band, along with Wilco, My Morning Jacket and the Richard Thompson Trio, will perform at the Bayfront Festival Park on the waterfront of Dylan’s birthplace,…
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Northern MN artists drop politically-charged mining album
An impressive group of northern Minnesota musicians, including the dean of the Duluth music scene Charlie Parr, have lent songs to a compilation album called “The Arrowhead Story.” This album is due for a Sept. 7 release, but has a digital page up now. It’d be an interesting collection on its own and it listens…
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B’nai Abraham welcomes classical & down-home musicians
The B’nai Abraham Cultural Center in Virginia announces another event this Saturday, July 13 at 7 p.m. It would not be summer without a much anticipated appearance by the Northern Lights Music Festival players, under the direction of their remarkable Festival founder, Veda Zuponcic. Her musicians come from all over the world, and study for…
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‘The Bird’ is back in business
An image of the Whistling Bird’s redesigned interior from the restaurant’s Facebook page. Amid the excitement of an Iron Range Fourth of July: the long-awaited re-opening of the Whistling Bird Caribbean restaurant in Gilbert, Minnesota. I spoke of the phoenix-like resurrection of “The Bird” a while back. We look forward to returning to the restaurant…
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Northern Lights Music Festival starts today
A scene from ‘Gianni Schicchi,’ the Northern Lights Opera Production in July 2011 Tonight you can catch a gala opening night concert for the Northern Lights Music Festival, a midsummer celebration of opera and classical music in the heart of northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Tonight’s concert is at 7 p.m. in the Mesabi East auditorium…
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A Midsummer’s Range Dream
This is my Sunday column for the June 30, 2013 Hibbing Daily Tribune. Thanks to everyone who attended or listened to last night’s Great Northern Radio Show at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids. Stay tuned for the rebroadcast at 10 a.m. on July 6. A Midsummer’s Range Dream By Aaron J. Brown * With apologies…
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Great Northern Radio Show on the air 5 p.m. Saturday
This is it! The biggest show in the history of my Great Northern Radio Show is on the air Saturday night at 5 p.m. We’re in rehearsals this afternoon and tomorrow before tomorrow night’s big show. “Big” is such a relative term, and we’ve had some fun with this. By big, I mean that we…
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Great Northern Radio Show: In Theory and more
This week I’ll be talking up the featured guests for Saturday’s Great Northern Radio Show, broadcasting live from the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. MinnesotaBrown readers can still get free tickets by calling 218-327-5780 (seating at 4:30, live on Northern Community Radio at 5). Today, we meet the new Minnesota band In Theory and…
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Great Northern Radio Show: Roe Family Singers
This week I’ll be talking up the featured guests for Saturday’s Great Northern Radio Show, broadcasting live from the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. MinnesotaBrown readers can still get free tickets by calling 218-327-5780 (seating at 4:30, live on Northern Community Radio at 5). The Roe Family Singers. Today we meet the Roe Family…
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Everclear to headline Merritt Days in Mt. Iron
This week I learned that Everclear, the multi-platinum alt-rock sensation of about 15 years ago, will headline Merritt Days in the Mesabi Iron Range’s “first city” of Mountain Iron. The music event will be Saturday, Aug. 10, with the Shack Shakers at *about* 6:30 p.m. and Everclear at *about* 9:30 p.m. Times are contingent on…