If multi-instrumentalist and composer Lex Letourneau (Leto) isn’t on Iowa City music fans’ radars just yet, they’re bound to make a few blips by the end of autumn.
A Georgia native, Leto started grad school at the University of Iowa in 2019 to study with flute professor Nicole Esposito. Experimental, contemporary music, specifically “weird flute shit” is Leto’s forte. Naturally, they began attending Public Space One and Feed Me Weird Things shows, and eventually met future collaborator Christine Burke at one of these events.
“The first people I found community with were my grad school friends,” Leto said. “Many of them don’t live here anymore. After that, it was Sarahann [Kolder] and Elly [Hofmaier]. From there, I started meeting everyone from those two.”
This past year, Leto has collaborated with artists around Iowa City and been a part of multiple music projects. Leto and Jarrett Purdy’s four-song EP have you been the night? was released in June, a project that the two have been working on since May 2022. Leto has also been playing with singer-songwriter Penny Peach and started working on a new album with Burke.
“I love collaboration, I eat it up,” Leto said. “The community here is so small and tight-knit, but also large — sometimes I wonder how I have not met you yet? I’m still meeting new people all of the time.”
Arguably Leto’s biggest project of this past year was the creation and release of their solo EP Right Here, originally made for the UI Dance Company (UIDC).
One of the songs that made it to the EP, “I’ll Be Here,” caught the attention of UI choreographer and assistant contemporary dance professor Melinda Jean Myers after Leto shared an early version to Instagram. Myers reached out to Leto asking if she could use the song for an upcoming performance.
“[Myers] would say, ‘I want something that has this feeling, can you make that?’” Leto said. “And then I’d make it. I loved working like that. The project was about climate change and the systemic factors that are informing the ways we go about our lives. We would talk about all of this together and with the dancers. Sometimes we would improvise together, which I loved.”
Leto recalls bringing a mini Ableton controller into Halsey Hall to make a beat on the spot. Dancers would move to the sounds produced by Leto at rehearsal, but on occasion it was the other way around. Sometimes Myers would begin choreography and Leto would create music to her movements.
Leto rehearsed with the dance group weekly during the fall semester, and then more frequently leading up to the UIDC’s Home Concert at the end of February.
After that, Leto decided it was time to cut an EP of the songs produced with the dancers.
“I needed to redesign this so it can be enjoyed just orally and you don’t necessarily need the dance to feel the thing,” Leto said. “That was my challenge and what I spent the next few months doing.”
You can find them performing this fall in KL!NG, a new project featuring Leto, Hofmaier and Aaron Knight. You can also catch Leto opening for Emily Wells on Sept. 20 at the James Theater as part of the Englert’s new Track Zero series.
Track Zero
“We’ve known for a while that there was a gap in our programming in regards to shows dedicated to and specifically for the college-aged demographic in our community, and we really get to rise to the occasion with Track Zero,” said Ella Kang, the Englert’s senior marketing manager. “With this new series, we’re really hoping to bring in fresh faces to the Englert by making the shows equal in quality and affordability.”
Track Zero, kicking off on Sept. 20, will spotlight up-and-coming alternative music artists — particularly those dabbling in R&B, folk and indie-pop.
“Those genres are not seen nearly as often in our current Englert Presents lineup, so our programming team was specific in targeting more alternative and underground sounds,” Kang said. “While no genre is off limits in our lineup, those definitely happen to be more fitting for the vibe we’re looking to put out and audiences we’re hoping to attract.”
The series was, in part, inspired by the community’s reception to performances last year by Lucy Dacus, a member of indie-rock supergroup boygenius, and Indigo De Souza, a North Carolina-based singer-songwriter known for intimate, often brutally honest lyrics. Both artists sold out their shows, and Englert staff took notice.
As of reporting, seven artists have been announced as part of the series, which will include year-round programming. The first is Emily Wells — a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter whose work dips into everything from the classical to the experimental — on Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Next is the Grammy-nominated jazz/hip-hop artist Kassa Overall on Sept. 29, folk singer-songwriter Kate Bollinger on Oct. 3, the husband-wife indie-pop duo Tennis on Oct. 19, indie singer-songwriter Madison McFerrin on Oct. 25, the Japanese musical artist Sen Morimoto — who blends jazz and rap — on Nov. 11, and Zora, a hip-hop artist whose music lifts up fellow Black trans women and girls, on Nov. 19.
More information about these and upcoming Track Zero performances can be found at englert.org and by following @trackzeroic on Instagram.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s September 2023 issue. Isaac Hamlet contributed to this article.
