MN Shortlist, Jan. 16-22: Ice, candlelight and beautiful nonsense
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Mid-January in Minnesota is when winter culture really shows its personality. This week leans into it from every angle: art villages on frozen lakes, homemade sleds flirting with gravity, candlelit concerts, unhurried Sundays and a mandolin master passing through town. Cold hands, warm ideas, zero apologies.
Art Shanty Projects’ at Bdé Umáŋ/Lake Harriet, Minneapolis — Weekends Jan. 17–Feb. 8
The frozen lake becomes a temporary village again as Art Shanty Projects returns with color, humor and just enough chaos to feel alive. Around 20 artist-made shanties dot the ice at Bdé Umáŋ/Lake Harriet, from “The Beaver Shanty” and “Cat World” to the Madson AIDS Memorial Shanty and the Vibrance Research Station. Weekends layer on frozen yoga, Prairie Fire Choir, winter plein air painting, bike races, Taiko on Ice and Twin Cities Native Lacrosse, making wandering half the point and participation the rest.
The 974th Art Sled Rally at Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis — Jan. 17
Some say this free Powderhorn tradition has been running for 15 years. Others insist it’s closer to a millennium. Either way, the Art Sled Rally is Minneapolis nonsense at its finest. Artists and neighbors send handmade sleds, shaped like spaceships, tigers, skunks, King Kong and whatever the news cycle demands, hurtling down the park’s slopes from 2 to 4 p.m. Ice may shorten the course this year, but it’s unlikely to dull the spectacle.
‘Under The Porch Lights’ at Historic Chateau Theatre, Rochester — Jan. 17
This chamber concert leans into atmosphere, pairing classical music with candlelight and a touch of Minnesota enchantment. The Rochester Symphony teams up with Minneapolis-based new-classical duo The OK Factor for a program that places Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” alongside the duo’s folk-inflected originals. Performed by glow and twinkle at the Historic Chateau Theatre, it’s a reminder that orchestral music doesn’t need a dark hall to feel transportive.
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Coffee Concerts at Lakeville Area Arts Center — Jan. 18
Sunday afternoons get a new, unhurried ritual with Coffee Concerts, a low-key series built around close listening and shared time. Founded by Minnesota oboist Carrie Vecchione and bassist Rolf Erdahl, the series opens Jan. 18 at the Lakeville Area Arts Center with opera arias and duets sung by Minnesota Opera resident artists. Future Sundays at 2 p.m. will rotate themes, from music for piano and winds to programs highlighting women composers, with performances by Twin Cities musicians and UW–River Falls faculty.
An Evening With Chris Thile — Jan. 18 at the Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis
Chris Thile doesn’t come through town much anymore, which makes this one-night stop feel like a small gift. The virtuosic mandolinist and endlessly curious musician returns to the Pantages Theatre after years spent hosting “Live From Here” and pushing acoustic music into unexpected terrain. Expect a solo set that moves fluidly between folk tradition and classical rigor, powered by the restless intelligence that’s earned Thile a MacArthur grant, multiple Grammys and a reputation as one of the defining musicians of his generation.
‘Robert Gonzalez: Mystical Waters’ at Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona — Through May 3
Water carries mythic weight in this two-gallery exhibition by San Antonio–based artist and musician Robert Gonzalez. Across eighteen large-scale paintings, Gonzalez draws on pre-Columbian Mexican mythology, Mayan iconography and dream imagery, moving between visions of ancient water deities and the communal ritual of the temazcal. The works feel at once intimate and expansive, using water as memory, medicine and a conduit to ancestral pasts.
If this stretch of winter has you restless, these are the kinds of events that remind you why staying put can be its own reward. Dress for the weather, linger longer than planned and let the season show off a little before it starts thinking about spring.
