At first glance “Drawing on the Walls,” the title of BodyVox’s springtime collaboration with wind quintet WindSync, conjured up images of kids secretly coloring their bedrooms with a rainbow of Crayolas. When the title is tagged with “humans have been telling stories since primitive people were drawing on the walls of their caves,” as it is in the program, the phrase shimmers with the power of storytelling and communicating. Read More

Wildly ambitious, eccentrically creative and almost over the top, Portland State University’s Così fan tutte by W.A. Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte proved this spring to be a refreshingly sung – if not always evenly – and imaginatively staged three-hour-long production. Read More

This year the 10-day Biamp PDX Jazz Festival was pushed into March to avoid anticipated bad February weather. From March 5–14, the festival put on more than 50 citywide concerts, many free and featuring local artists, and 10 nights with internationally celebrated artists, several of them double-billed. There were 11 sellouts of 19 ticketed concerts by the end of the festival. Read More

Ten years ago, Fellow Travelers “was history; now the opera is news,” said author Thomas Mallon opening night Feb. 21 at Seattle Opera. His book, Fellow Travelers, was published in 2007, almost 20 years ago. The opera premiered in Cincinnati in 2016. Read More

Cécile McLorin Salvant, better known as Cécile, was back in Portland Feb. 10, this time at the fairly intimate (300-400 seats, depending on the concert configuration) Alberta Rose Theatre. PDX Jazz brought in the MacArthur Fellow, Grammy Award winner and utterly original jazz vocalist as an appetizer to the Biamp Portland Jazz Festival. Read More

“What is my hand in this?
While you listen to this song,
Will you try to right your wrong, asking,
What is my hand in this?” Read More

Jimmie Herrod’s dazzling concert with the Oregon Symphony this month wasn’t sold out but it should have been. “Divas: Jimmie Herrod Salutes Jazz” Jan. 24 and 25 at the 2,776-seat Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall starred the 35-year-old Tacoma-born singing phenom. It was thrilling to see him on such a big stage, backed by the orchestra, right at home and right in tune. He’s an original in a natty suit, and some say he has the voice of an angel. Read More

BEAVERTON – It’s no surprise that Edgar Meyer’s concert with his brilliant new touring partners, violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Joshua Roman, sold out Jan. 10 at the 550-seat Patricia Reser Center for the Arts. Chamber Music Northwest presented the concert, and has invited Meyer to play many times. He has performed 25 CMNW concerts since 1992. Six years have passed since his most recent visit in 2019. Read More

By this time of year, Christmas songs are already stale. “Jolly Old St. Nick” and “Silent Night”(mare) are on repeat in every store and restaurant. Don’t get discouraged. Trio Mediæval relieves any holiday music anguish with their crystal-clear voices. This group, from Norway and Sweden, sings new arrangements of Scandinavian tunes, English carols and German and Northern European folk songs, mostly in an a capella form. Read More

“Carrying on in public like that? You’re just a bunch of Eleanor Roosevelts!” grumbles a curmudgeonly old guy performed by actor Paul Mortimer, who juggles several small roles. He has just entered Mr. Pete’s soda shop the last year of World War II when he begins carping at the vivacious women gathered around the table sipping their malts and milkshakes. Read More