The Willie August Project premieres Suite for a Dancer, the magnum opus of composer-guitarist Ben Siems. Comprising six movements played without pauses or breaks, this symphony-length work for jazz trio portrays the life of a professional dancer, from youthful emergence through late-career inner peace. Inspired by collaborations between Siems and renowned Minnesota dancers and choreographers—and drawing on Siems’s training under Ghanaian master drummer Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng—Suite for a Dancer follows the dancer across years of agonies and triumphs, and ultimately beyond the relentless gaze of studio mirrors to her own space, bathed in moonlight.

The first set of this concert will consist of a continuous performance of the suite; for the second set, the Willie August Project will play a selection of the group’s best-known tunes.

Band Members:
Ben Siems - Guitar
Matt Peterson - Upright Bass
Jeremy Hauer - Drums

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Ben Siems (co-founder, guitarist/composer) has performed at venues across the country as a jazz, blues, and folk guitarist. He has received over two dozen awards and grants for compositions ranging in style from jazz to neoclassical and avant-garde/experimental. He has created soundtracks for over 50 dance and theater productions, film and video works, and TV broadcasts, many of them featuring his first instrument, the cello. The Willie August Project is named for his grandfather, a railroad electrician and music and dance event organizer who died young of a brain tumor.

Jeremy Hauer (co-founder/drummer) studied under Minnesota icons Gordy Knudtson and Dave King, incorporating their masterful use of timbre and texture into his own painterly, reflective style. In addition to performing with the Willie August Project, he has played with multiple Twin Cities jazz and Americana groups, including the Handcars, a Gordon Lightfoot tribute project, and currently, Wilkinson James. He is also an accomplished audio engineer whose credits include installing the sound and video systems of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts concert hall.

Matt Peterson (upright bassist) studied jazz under legendary Twin Cities teacher and band director Don Bates before pursuing a degree in music and music education at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. In addition to his work with The Willie August Project, he leads his own jazz group and regularly performs with Zacc Harris’s American Reverie, the Explosion Big Band, and the Twin Cities Hot Club. He also works as a music instructor for K–5 students in the Edina public schools and is an avid long-distance cyclist.