Even if you’re a classical music novice, you’ve no doubt heard J.S. Bach’s iconic Brandenburg Concertos. Maybe at a wedding? On the radio? If you’re a classical-music aficionado, you likely appreciate absorbing them again and again especially if played by exceptional musicians like those at this summer’s five-week Chamber Music Northwest’s “Echoes of Bach” Festival June 28 through July 27. (Of course, some listeners do suffer the ad nauseum illness if heard too much.) Read More

Celilo Falls, revisited, was more astounding and polished the second time around when the Oregon Symphony performed it June 7-9 at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall than when it premiered three years earlier, on June 4, 2022, at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton and repeated the following day at Northeast Portland’s St. Michael’s Lutheran Church. The story of the loss of Indigenous fishing waters needed to be told – even though composer Nancy Ives said she is descended from a long line of colonists without a drop of Native blood. And the story needed to be amplified and sent out to the non-Native world, even if Ives said it was not her “story to tell” because of her heritage. Read More

EUGENE, Ore. – Paul Jacobs is a very serious musician. Who else would memorize all of J.S. Bach’s organ works and play them non-stop for 18 hours, sustaining himself with water, a measly cup of pudding, and his adoration of Bach? He staged that feat 24 years ago in 2000 when he commemorated the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, and he made history. Read More

Unlike some reviewers who argue that The Shining has legs, I’m unsure if this opera will make it into the privileged realm of regularly produced shows. Whether it does or doesn’t become part of the canon, Portland Opera hit the jackpot with this production in its ongoing battle to find new audiences. Read More

SEATTLE – On March 2, 650 kids sat in the spellbound audience of The Magic Flute at Seattle Opera’s McCaw Hall, the 2,900-seat opera house. They were brimming with anticipation for W. A. Mozart’s beloved final opera that premiered in Vienna in 1791. After 233 years, its fairytale heart exuding measure after measure of beautiful music keeps beating. Read More

“I have no idea what we’ll play next,” Jovino Santos Neto chuckled as he ran chords up and down The Old Church’s Steinway’s keys, joking that he and his quintet, in the second set, would play the first set’s tunes backwards. Read More

With a 10-day bang-up lineup of 70 acts performing at 35 venues, the Biamp Portland Jazz Festival has been waking up the city. The festival opened Feb. 20 and will wind up March 1. Read More

Let’s be grateful for those mid-century Russian composers who made so much emotional music and survived so much political oppression. Fortunately, the music endured and Stalin is gone: “Who thinks about him anymore?” pianist Wu Han said, warming up the sold-out Chamber Music Northwest audience on a cold Feb. 6 night at Portland’s The Old Church. Read More

BEAVERTON – 45th Parallel Universe’s New Year, New Akiho framed Portland percussionist/composer extraordinaire Andy Akiho as the headliner at its much anticipated Jan. 28 concert at Patricia Reser Center for the Arts. Akiho’s short world premiere, Copper Variations, was performed before intermission of the two-hour concert, the third of four contemporary pieces on the gutsy program of ear-bending contemporary music. Read More

Felix Mendelssohn’s 1839 “Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 49” was the final piece of the Florestan Trio’s concert, presented by the Friends of Chamber Music Jan. 26 at Portland’s The Old Church. The chilly midwinter night in the snug, acoustically resonant space made you feel as if you were at a chamber concert in a small northern European church, the composers not centuries away. Read More