“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

BEAVERTON–Not that I’d outlaw the scruffy looks of most performing Portland jazz musicians, but a change-up is welcome when an East Coast group such as the Aaron Diehl Trio comes to town. Dressed in coats and ties, Diehl’s starched white cuffs gleaming like the piano keys, the trio performed coolly Jan. 19 in front of plush velour curtains turned deep blue by lighting at the 550-seat Reser Center in Beaverton. Read More

Chamber Music Northwest’s opening fall/winter/spring concert Oct. 5 at The Old Church didn’t present an evening of easy listening, but it elegantly illustrated why we have the music we hear these days. Or at least, some of what we listen to. Read More

So many Latin jazz vocalists populate the planet, and so few sing in Portland. But PDX Jazz mixed it up early this month, and we got lucky Oct. 1 when Mexican jazz singer Magos Herrera and Brazilian guitarist Vinicius Gomes performed for two hours at The Old Church. Read More

Yet another American wartime atrocity – the internment of Japanese people living in the United States during World War II – is given voice in Portland Opera’s world premiere, Shizue: An American Story. It opened Oct. 4 for a short run at Portland’s 200-seat Brunish Theatre. Read More

The San Francisco's Opera’s "The Handmaid’s Tale"" is important — and very dark. See Angela’s review. Photo by Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera. Read More