From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

It’s that time of the year when, for eight days, local music reigns in Duluth and Superior. The Homegrown Music Festival continues through Sunday.

Emily Lee of Duluth is attending Homegrown for her twelfth year, and like many music lovers, she’s studied up on the Field Guide to make sure she can see her favorite bands. Check out the schedule here.

Emily says: I’m going to see [Blues-rock band] The Adjustments Saturday night. Strikepoint is playing this year, which is kind of unique. They're an amazing handle choir here in town. My husband can't wait to see Bratwurst, and you have to watch out at that show, because Bratwurst throws raw meat off the stage. So a lot of people show up in ponchos.

Something new this year is the Homegrown Variety Showcase on Friday night at Studio Four, and it's kind of like a variety talent show with poets, comedians and dancers. So that's something cool this year to check out.

There's also different dress up nice each week for Homegrown, so that's kind of fun to see what everyone wears. Tonight is Eccentric Art Teacher & Gym Coach Night. Friday is Leather & Lace Night. Saturday is Pirates & Princesses Night. Sunday is Relaxation Sunday; they have a couple of daytime shows on Sunday because that's the last day of the festival.

— Emily Lee

Actor Silvestrey P’orantes of Minneapolis highly recommends checking out “Framed Differently,” an evening of four short films by local Native filmmakers with a Q&A to follow. Hosted by Sequoia Hauck, the event is Saturday, May 3 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Public Functionary’s Main Gallery 144 in Minneapolis.

The films are Ajuawak Kapashesit’s “The Comedian,” Rosy Simas’s “yödoishëndahgwa'geh (a place to rest),” Oogie Push’s “Hunting Morels: Mushroom Secrets” and Moira Villiard’s animated film “Love Lessons in a Time of Settler Colonialism.”

Silvestrey says: [They’re] all doing different films about Indigenous perspective outside of just the title of being Indigenous. There's a lot of pressure sometimes to fit into the stereotype of like, well, we got to talk about language and reclamation and what have you.

But sometimes, you know, we just want to talk about what we want to talk about. We're really emphasizing that we are artists who have things to say outside of just who we are.

— Silvestrey P’orantes

St. Paul musician Mary Adamek wants people to know about a musical opportunity in Marshall, Minn., this Saturday. Southwest Minnesota StringFest invites string players aged 13–18 to rehearse and perform alongside professional musicians on Saturday, May 3.

The event is free and sign-ups are still open for students in Minnesota and southeast South Dakota. The festival culminates in a free concert performance, open to the public, on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Fine Arts Theater of Southwest Minnesota State University.

Mary says: The festival is organized and funded through a partnership by three organizations: the St. Joseph School of Music, St. Paul Conservatory of Music, the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra and the Southwest Minnesota State University.

This is the only string festival available to string students in southwestern Minnesota.

— Mary Adamek

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Cindy Pope is a ceramic artist from Waite Park. She got a dose of early spring by visiting the ceramics exhibit “Garden Party” at the Paramount Center for the Arts in St. Cloud.

Created by Stacy Larson, who is originally from Cold Spring, the exhibit features wheel-thrown and hand-carved cups and tableware that look like delicate leaves and flowers, glazed in springtime colors. The exhibit runs through March.

Julia Cheng of Duluth had a chance to hear the world premiere this fall of “mOthertongue: Lived Experience in Asian America.”

Soprano Jennifer Lien of Duluth performs three song cycles commissioned by Asian American women composers, accompanied on piano by Lina Yoo-Min Lee. Lien commissioned these new works in partnership with the Cincinnati Song Initiative with support from the Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant.

The duo has continued to perform these works in what Cheng refers to as “a living collaboration.” They’ll perform highlights of the song cycles at the College of St. Scholastica’s “Lunch With Friends” on March 25, with the full performance on March 28 at the college’s Mitchell Auditorium.

Julia Cheng was touched by the performance and looks forward to hearing it again.

“I have to say that, as the child of immigrants from China, these songs really resonated with me,” Cheng said. “I always wondered, you know, how did they deal with the dislocation of leaving home, family, language, culture, developing new community, the wrenching loss of being separated from family? These are all things that I heard bits and pieces of in the song cycles by Melissa Dunphy and the other two composers.”

Annalisa Buerke follows her former colleague artist Rick Love on Instagram, where she enjoyed watching his process of creating a series of sculptures now on view at the Tettegouche State Park Visitor Center in Silver Bay.

The five sculptures are all made of wood — some painted, some charred — that celebrate both forests and sustainability. The works evoke the moon, the sun, a tree, a waterfall and Lake Superior. They’ll be on view through March.

Tettegouche State Park’s Visitor Center includes both juried art shows (of which Love’s exhibit was one) and an artist-in-residence program.