A pair of replica Baroque instruments starred in a recent concert, “Sonate di Luce,” at the Baroque Room in St. Paul’s Lowertown, where a rising violin talent, Benjamin Lenzmeier, performed with Madison, Wis.-based historical performance enthusiast Sean Kleve, on the harpsichord.

Located on the second floor of the Northwestern Building, the Baroque Room is a brightly lit space with an intimate feeling and features a number of acoustic panels and foam to mitigate the sound. Lenzmeier beamed at the small but supportive hometown crowd.

Violinist Benjamin Lenzmeier performed on a historic violin along with Sean Kleve on harpsichord for “Sonate di Luce: Luminous sonatas from 17th and 18th century Italy” at the Baroque Room in St. Paul on Saturday, Aug. 2, 2025. (Courtesy of Sean Kleve)

Lenzmeier grew up in Minnesota. After studying music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and performing with a number of Midwestern ensembles (including St. Paul’s Lyra Baroque Orchestra), he moved to the Netherlands to study at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague.

Lenzmeier’s Baroque replica featured gut strings and a shorter fingerboard than modern violins. “They just didn’t play as high on the instrument,” he explained to the audience. His Baroque-style bows (he had two), meanwhile, were also shorter than today’s bows, and curved in the opposite direction compared to bows in modern times.

The shorter bow meant less room to luxuriate in a longer note, and because of the way the bows were weighted, the notes would sometimes fade out at the end, like in Biagio Marini’s Sonata No. 4, before Lenzmeier launched into an impressive double-stop section.

Despite the shorter bow, Lenzmeier managed to create volume with his instrument, like in Antonio Caldara’s Violin Sonata in F Major for Violin and Continuo, and captured a bright, forceful sound in Antonio Vivaldi’s Sonata in G minor, Op.2 No.1 (RV27).

The violinist’s fingering maintained articulation in the quick runs and ornamentation of the Baroque music, and he looked loose and relaxed even in the most virtuosic moments.

Lenzmeier also played without a chin rest or shoulder support, holding his instrument up with his arm and balancing it bare on his shoulder. The young musician’s playing style was quite physical. He moved his shoulders up and down quite a bit, as his violin danced as he played. He kept his legs mostly straight, but at times he’d raise up on his toes, and used a loose wrist when bowing, like when he whizzed through the quick notes of Arcangelo Corelli’s Sonata in D Major, Op. 5, No. 1, for violin and basso continuo.

Kleve, meanwhile, performed with a replica of an Italian harpsichord from the era, made by David Sutherland in 1984. Speaking about the instrument, Kleve said its strings were made with yellow brass wire, which doesn’t sustain a long sound, and requires clarity from the player.

For most of the works they played in the program, Kleve played the continuo part, where the bass line was composed and the upper notes were improvised. He also played one piece by Domenico Scarlatti, called Sonata in A Major, K. 208, alone on stage. He characterized the work as a “duet” for his two hands. The sonata gave a chance for Kleve to demonstrate his skill as a soloist as Lenzmeier took a short break, and demonstrated the possibility of the plucked instrument to be quite lyrical.

In all, the two musicians played music by seven Italian composers from the 17th and 18th centuries, and their enthusiasm for the old music — as well as the historical way the music was played — was infectious.

If you go

Who: Next up at the Baroque Room: Lyra Baroque musicians with Director Emeritus Jacques Ogg

What: “Flavors of Europe: A Food, Music and Wine Adventure”

When: 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 15

Where: The Baroque Room, 275 E. Fourth St., No. 280, St. Paul

Tickets: $205 at lyrabaroque.org

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Accessibility: The Baroque Room is located on the second floor of the Northwestern Building, which has two public elevators.

Capsule: If you’re enticed by Baroque music, Lyra Baroque performs an evening of Baroque music paired with food and cuisine from around Europe, featuring Artistic Director Emeritus Jacques Ogg and Lyra musicians.

CLEVELAND — Austin Martin was one of the last players sent down as the Twins made their final roster cuts during spring training. He was in line to have been one of the first players called back up, too.

Unfortunately for Martin, his right hamstring wouldn’t cooperate. Martin first strained the hamstring chasing after a fly ball in center field on April 10. That injury left him out for nearly a month. He returned on May 6, hitting a single in his first at-bat. He didn’t make it around the bases before re-injuring the same leg. His return lasted less than a full inning as Martin once again landed on the injured list with a hamstring strain, not returning again until June 26.

It was a frustrating start to the season for Martin, once a top prospect after being selected fifth overall in the 2020 draft. But now, after the Twins traded much of their roster at the deadline creating space at the major league level, there’s an opportunity for Martin, who debuted last season, to show the Twins what he can do and the utilityman intends to make the most of it.

“That’s all I’ve ever needed was just an opportunity,” Martin said. “All I want to do is just go out and play my game.”

He certainly had been at Triple-A. Martin was hitting .306 with a .420 on-base percentage before his call up on Friday. He had three hits in his first major league game of the season on Friday and singled and scored a run on Sunday in the Twins’ 5-4 win over the Guardians, as he tries to salvage the latter part to his season.

“I knew some good would come out of it. Even in the negative situations, there’s always going to be some positives that come out of it,” Martin said. “As frustrating as it was to try to build up to get  back and first game back, first inning back, reinjuring it, it was frustrating for sure but that’s baseball. Sometimes things are going to happen.”

The positives, he said, were that he went back to the team’s complex in Fort Myers, Florida, and was able to work on his game. The tweaks he made during the offseason, he’s been able to implement and now, he feels exactly how he wants to feel in the batter’s box.

Now, it’s about showing it at the major league level as he tries to carve a role out for himself on the Twins moving forward.

“He handles everything comes his way – successes, disappointments, everything because you see a lot in this game – he handles it all well,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He doesn’t let things get in his way. He just keeps his head down. He works very hard. He demands a lot of himself and he just keeps going.”

Woods Richardson pushed back

The Twins had to shuffle their pitching plans this week to account for the fact that Simeon Woods Richardson is dealing with a stomach issue. The starter, who was scheduled to start the series finale in Cleveland, is now listed as the starting pitcher for Wednesday’s series finale in Detroit against the first-place Tigers.

On Sunday, he was replaced by José Ureña, who was called up on Friday and threw four innings, giving up two runs in the start. The Twins have yet to name a starter for the series opener in Detroit, though they are likely to run some kind of bullpen game.

Briefly

Second baseman Luke Keaschall is very close to rejoining the Twins with his return likely to happen this week in Detroit. Keaschall, one of the team’s top prospects, has been out since April 25 when he was hit by a pitch, fracturing his forearm. In his first seven major league games, Keaschall had provided a spark in the Twins’ lineup, hitting .368 with five stolen bases.

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By Brian K. Sullivan, Bloomberg News

Smoke and grit from hundreds of forest fires have spread across large parts of Canada and the northern U.S., sending air quality across the Midwest and northeast U.S. and Toronto to unhealthy levels.

Air quality deteriorated to moderate in Chicago early Sunday with some areas deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups, and to unhealthy in Milwaukee and downtown Toronto, Canada’s largest city, according to AirNow.gov. Alerts were raised across Canada from the Northwest Territories to Quebec, as well as in 10 U.S. states from Minnesota to Maine.

Through Sunday, the area covered has spread to include almost all of New York except the Hudson Valley from Albany to New York City, as well as all of Vermont and nearly all of Maine. In addition, conditions have deteriorated in Montreal, Canada’s second most populous city, with levels dropping to unhealthy for sensitive people.

With weather patterns expected to hold steady, there is little chance of immediate relief, forecasters noted.

“The overall flow is still out of the west; it doesn’t look like it is going to change much overall,” said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster with the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. “It goes out through the week.”

More than 730 forest fires are raging across Canada with at least 210 out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The smoke from the blazes, which have consumed 6.6 million hectares (16.3 million acres), have often drifted south in the U.S. at various times this spring and summer, including casting a pall over the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago on Friday.

In recent years, the massive smoke clouds drifting from Canadian fires have triggered a series of emergencies across the eastern U.S., and at one point turned Manhattan’s skies an apocalyptic orange. The smoke has crossed the Atlantic at times, clouding European skies and dropping soot across the Arctic. Scientists are looking into whether the smoke is contributing to melting ice there and rising temperatures.

Steady wind out of the northwest will keep the smoke drifting into the U.S. for at least the coming week, Oravec said. The conditions that broke the hot, humid weather across the eastern U.S. are also partially to blame for the spreading smoke, he said. Temperatures in New York’s Central Park, for instance, dropped from the mid to high 90sF last week to just 80F Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

Oravec said until the fires are extinguished, there will likely be continued rounds of smoke and ash drifting south.

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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CLEVELAND — There was little time for president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, general manager Jeremy Zoll and company to rest after a stressful, emotional day on Thursday. Following a trade deadline in which they executed nine trades — including seven alone on Thursday — they had a major league roster to rebuild.

That roster scored four runs in the first inning on their way to a 5-4 win over the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field in the series finale on Sunday afternoon. A group made primarily of players who had already been in the majors — Austin Martin, Ryan Jeffers, Matt Wallner, Royce Lewis and Trevor Larnach — each singled in the first inning to give the Twins a lead they would hold all game.

But who are their new teammates?

Five of the call ups had played for the Twins before this weekend — four of them already this year. The other three hadn’t but only one, Alan Roden, was included in the group of players acquired at the deadline. The rest of the players the Twins traded for have been sent to various minor league affiliates.

José Ureña, a 33-year-old right-handed pitcher, who has now pitched for 10 different major league teams, got the start on Sunday for the Twins in place of Simeon Woods Richardson, who is dealing with a stomach issue. When the veteran took the mound for the Twins, it marked the fourth different team he had pitched for this season. In four innings on Sunday, he allowed two runs, both coming on a José Ramírez two-run home run in the first inning.

The Twins’ other new bullpen additions include Erasmo Ramírez, another veteran who has pitched in parts of 13 different major league seasons and who picked up the save Sunday after Michael Tonkin gave up two ninth-inning runs, and rookies Travis Adams and Pierson Ohl.

Both Adams, the team’s No. 26 prospect per MLB Pipeline, and Ohl have been part of an experiment the Twins have been running in the minor leagues during which select pitchers have been throwing about four innings every four days instead of pitching on a more traditional starter schedule. Both will likely be used in multi-inning outings, perhaps sometimes in piggyback situations. Adams, 25, debuted in early June and Ohl on Tuesday, coming up to start after Chris Paddack was dealt to the Detroit Tigers a day earlier.

On the position-player side, the Twins added Edouard Julien and Martin, two players whom they are very familiar with, as well as Roden and Ryan Fitzgerald.

Julien, a second baseman, began the season in the majors but after a tough start to the year, was sent back to Triple-A, where he was hitting .276/.416/.464 with 11 home runs at the time he was recalled. Martin, who had three singles on Friday and began Sunday’s game by singling and scoring a run, likely would have been up earlier if not for two hamstring injuries earlier in the year. He had primarily been playing the outfield for the Saints this year.

“Every opportunity you have to play at this level is a blessing,” Martin said. “I never want to take it for granted and my mentality is just to go out there and play like it’s my last day every day.”

Fitzgerald, an infielder who was briefly up in May, debuted at age 30 and is still searching for his first-career hit after a lengthy-minor league career.

And Roden the final player added to the roster, is a 25-year-old outfielder who hails from Middleton, Wisconsin, and was part of the return in the trade that sent Louie Varland and Ty France to Toronto. The outfielder was at Triple-A Buffalo at the time of the trade, where he had hit .331 with a .918 OPS this season across 32 games. He had also spent 43 games with the Blue Jays in the majors this year.

“(He’s) a guy that we think is a really, really good bat,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You have a guy that can play all three outfield positions that you think can really hit from the left side and controls the zone a good bit.”

With two months left in the season, that means there’s plenty of time for the newly-called up bunch to make an impression and try to carve out a role moving forward.

“There is going to be a lot of opportunity for people,” Larnach said. “I think the best thing is to look at the positives and not getting caught up in the change and what’s missing or whatever. Get better, work, put your head down and grind.”

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