We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samuel Grace. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samuel below.
Samuel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
My work with MPLS (imPulse) has always involved risk. Our entire business model has hinged around contemporary choral music tied to non-traditional performance venues. Sometimes our performances incorporate interdisciplinary collaborators: local businesses, artists, and other performers. When we think of a new project, we always ask the question: “where could choral music go where it hasn’t already?”
Our leadership team with MPLS (imPulse) is founded on risk-taking. We perform in spaces most ensembles wouldn’t consider: a planetarium, commercial kitchen, quonset hut, brewery, and warehouse spaces all come to mind. We are coming into our 10th season this fall. When we started our business, we tried just about everything. Some projects roared with success—others flopped slightly because a venue may have been too loud or too uncomfortable. We’ve learned a lot from trial and error about who, what, and where to do our work. In many ways, we are the experimental guinea pigs of contemporary choral music in the Twin Cities right now.
Because of our work and commitment to bringing choral music to new audiences, we’ve found new partnerships in recent years with partners we love. We have an ongoing improvised choral comedy show with The Bearded Company—an outstanding longform improv comedy troupe. We’ve performed a handful of shows with local folk trio Corpse Reviver, as well as Jillian Rae. We are proud partners with ComMUSICation, an after-school music program in St. Paul. Most recently, we performed with Icelandic/Australian electronic composer Ben Frost for a new opera “Cold Air Rises” for the Great Northern Festival. Earlier this month, we recorded our second album for AfterTime, a local symphonic metal band. This fall, we will kick off our 10th season by premiering a new work by Tim Takach called “Unfashioned Creature,” which is a non-narrative version of the Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, which we will perform with James Sewell Ballet.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I got into choral music because the piano didn’t work out. For years, I wanted to pursue a career as a collaborative pianist, and while I possess some of the skills required for the job, I lacked a technical ability that would put me at a disadvantage against my peers. Although I had always participated in choir throughout high school and college, I hadn’t followed the typical trajectory for my peers, which is receiving a degree in music education and teaching secondary middle school choir. My teacher recommended I dip my toes into choral music by taking on a sacred music position at a church, and I have now worked in sacred music in some capacity for over twelve years.
I went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota from 2012-2014, which opened my eyes to a broader world of choral music I hadn’t yet been introduced to. I used my studies to learn more about what inspired me about choral music. When I finished the program, along with the encouragement from my teachers, I founded MPLS (imPulse). I moved to Indiana in 2019 to pursue a DM (doctor of music) degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. I returned to Minnesota in July 2022.
My work in choral music has always been unconventional, but I don’t pursue it for the sake of finding something unusual. I am drawn to themes, storytelling, and creating an experience that artists and audiences will talk about long after they leave the performance. I love just about all choral music of all genres and time periods, which spans close to 1000 years. What I find so invigorating about my work is that I could be conducting Handel’s “Messiah” one day, record a chorus with a local metal band the next day, and finish out my week teaching college students or my church choirs new repertoire for performances and services. Everything about my days are new: new repertoire, new people, new ideas. It’s a very stimulating and exciting career to be involved with.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think that we need to collectively understand that creative work, regardless of how it looks or appeals to a specific audience, drives the cultural energy of a community. Private, public, and government funding sources must prioritize arts funding, not simply to provide a living for a community of artists, but also to help make a community a more exciting and thriving place to live. My community has and would thrive without our ensemble, MPLS (imPulse), but we have a small community of artists and audience members whose lives have changed as a result of the community we’ve established. Our singers have formed long-term friendships. Some have even found new jobs. Our audiences have found new artists and businesses to engage and support. Collectively, smaller organizations like ours drive economic value and fulfill the personal needs of our community.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I think that I was fairly naive to assume early on in my career that audiences will just show up to any event because we had a built-in audience from friends and family members of the choir. What I’ve learned over time is that audiences need a compelling reason to attend an event. This is more true today than it was three years ago. I think the COVID-19 pandemic taught people to be much more judicious with how they spend their time outside of home. Today, I think that time is probably the most valuable commodity (much more than the sticker price of an event), and if we want our work to be successful, we need to compel our audience that their time is worth spending at our event. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mplsimpulse.org
- Instagram: @mplsimpulse
- Facebook: /mplsimpulse
Image Credits
Mark Fierst David Mills-Rittmann Jayme Halbritter