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Bay Area Beats: Karl Digerness & Minna Choi

Courtesy of Karl Digerness
Karl Digerness and Minna Choi performing live with members of Magik*Magik Orchestra

Songwriting can be a challenge. So when San Francisco musician Karl Digerness found himself battling writer’s block he started reading the texts from plays written by William Shakespeare for some lyrical inspiration.
Karl reached out to collaborator and friend Minna Choi of Magik*Magik Orchestra and along with his Shakespearean cover band, The FrailOphelias, they created a project that combined modern rock and folk music with scenes from the Shakespeare tragedy Macbeth. For this edition of Bay Area beats, Karl and Minna stopped by KALW to discuss just how Macbeth’s themes from four hundred years ago are still relevant today.

"I hope it's possible that you'd hear the song and not know immediately that it's Shakespeare. I wanted to honor the text for sure, it feels almost sacred."

You can catch Minna Choi along with Karl Digerness and The Frail Ophelias at their Macbeth album release show. It’s happening this Thursday night at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco.
 

Jeneé Darden is an award-winning journalist, author, public speaker and proud Oakland native. She is the executive producer and host of the weekly arts segment Sights & Sounds as well as the series Sights + Sounds Magazine. Jeneé also covers East Oakland for KALW. Jeneé has reported for NPR, Marketplace, KQED, KPCC, The Los Angeles Times, Ebony magazine, Refinery29 and other outlets. In 2005, she reported on the London transit bombings for Time magazine. Prior to coming to KALW, she hosted the podcast Mental Health and Wellness Radio.