Each time I’ve heard harpist Brandee Younger in Portland since 2016, she glows brighter as a musician and more sure-footed as a performer. Whether playing her beloved fellow harpist the late Alice Coltrane’s tunes or her own compositions, she is an innovative guide of the harp’s journey, history and music. She’s a master player of the huge awkward beautiful instrument. Read More

Even if you’re a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart junkie, a dedicated opera fan or a musicologist, bets are you haven’t seen or heard Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione or Scipio’s Dream. You’ll only occasionally find it listed in the reference books. Read More

Take this story as my opinion of the best of Portland’s five-week Chamber Music Northwest Festival June 28 through July 27. I missed only a few concerts in the summer feast, including Bach’s Mass in B Minor and one of the New@Night concerts that celebrate living composers’ music. The festival focused on J.S. Bach’s work and influence, but plenty more music was programmed to appreciate. Read More

Handpicked by Chamber Music Northwest’s co-artistic directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, summer-festival protégés have positions that are coveted and celebrated in the music world. CMNW’s 15-year protégé program has helped to launch a number of up-and-coming musicians into real-world fame, present-day friendships – and maybe, fortune. Read More

After nine memorable seasons through Covid, wildfires, musicians’ injuries, cutting-edge and timeless music, Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival will be back in Oregon wine country for three successive weekends Aug. 2 through Aug. 17. Read More

EUGENE– John Coltrane stepped off the planet in 1967, and J.S. Bach two centuries earlier, in 1750. Both deaths created profound losses in the music world, and both men left profound music. But let’s be grateful that poet and jazz critic A.B. Spellman, 89, who wrote “Dear John Coltrane” for the saxophone master in his Things I Must Have Known volume (Coffeehouse Press, 2008) is still alive and reading. Read More

EUGENE – J.S. Bach’s Markus Passion is not nearly as well-known as his often-presented John and Matthew passions. The little-known “pocket passion” was lost in the mid-18th century after Bach’s death and then found, in part, a century later. Read More

No way you can fit Kit Armstrong, 33, into a musical box. His achievements, ideas and reflections are too vast. He rarely holds still. And his improvisations — consider the Debussy-influenced “fish” encore he played after the Goldberg Variations on July 1 at Reed College’s Kaul Auditorium — are unpredictably astounding though he plays the pieces so breathlessly fast that you can’t keep up. Read More

I’ve written it before: When Soovin Kim walks onstage and plays his violin with any ensemble, no matter the size, he and his instrument add gravitas, drama, joy and a range of colors– along with indisputable skill and technique – to the world-class musicians with whom he plays. Read More

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