Clips & Articles: Music
I review the Seattle and Portland operas, and smaller opera companies, for Portland-based Oregon ArtsWatch and Artslandia, and for Classical Voice North America, the official web site of the Music Critics Association of North America, of which I am a member. I write about classical, chamber and jazz music for Oregon ArtsWatch, Classical Voice North America, and previously, for Oregon Music News, concertonet.com and Northwest Reverb. For more stories and music reviews, check the archives at www.columbian.com between 1995-2006. My 2005 National Endowment for the Arts and Columbia Journalism grant helped immensely in music coverage.
“Katya Kabanova” review: Tragic thrills
Set in a world that might be pre-Bolshevik Russia or Cold War America, Seattle Opera’s first production of a rarely staged Leos Janacek opera might even draw tears from Puccini fans
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch in March 2017
Unoccupied seats are often the price an opera company pays when it tries something new and off the oft-beaten path of French and Italian opera. There were plenty of empty rows opening night, February 25, at the Seattle Opera, but perhaps by the end of the Katya Kabanova run, seats will… Read More
Maria Schneider Orchestra and Kneebody: Many voices, one vision
PDX Jazz Festival opening weekend bands share fondness for diverse influences. But there’s one big difference.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch February 2017
“I have always loved a lot of different kinds of music,” Maria Schneider said in February from her Manhattan apartment where she’s lived for decades. In her multiple Grammy-winning jazz orchestra’s music, “the colors and forms and textures come from classical, flamenco, and Brazilian influences.” They’re tied together. “I love melody,”… Read More
Seattle Opera’s ‘La Traviata’: Stripped-down tragedy
Shorn of lavish accoutrements and other inessentials, revelatory 21st century production gains force and focus
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch January 2017
There is nowhere to hide in this Traviata. Running only an hour and 50 minutes, German director Peter Konwitschny’s spare version, playing through January 28 at Seattle Opera, focuses keenly and persistently on its characters, on Giuseppe Verdi’s lush and ever-building music, and on the extreme emotions surrounding dying Violetta. She has struggled,… Read More
Kamasi Washington preview: Epic jazz
Expansive album vaults Los Angeles jazz saxophonist and bandleader to wider fame, but he's more concerned with spirituality than celebrity
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch November 2016.
Kamasi Washington has so charmed and befuddled music writers that some rely on the word “celebrity” to describe him. And a celebrity is rare thing in the tiny jazz world. Named for the capital of Ashanti, the West African pre-colonial kingdom that is now Ghana, Washington hasn’t won a Grammy… Read More
Catherine Russell preview: Artful swing from the ground up
Renowned jazz singer's new album is grounded in her Harlem roots
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch October 2016
“Some people feel music from the top down; they’re not hip-shakers. They like the violins and long tones,” Catherine Russell, 60, said from her downtown Manhattan home in late September. “Some of us are more rooted in the ground. We hear it from the ground up. Music makes me want… Read More
Renée Fleming review: Queen of the Night
Star soprano’s concert with the Oregon Symphony covers a wide range of vocal riches
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch September 2016
During the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Renée Fleming worked her way, in part, through State University of New York at Potsdam, and later at the Juilliard School, by singing jazz gigs. Saxophonist Illinois Jacquet thought she was good enough to tour with his big band when she was a… Read More
Raul Midón preview: Uncontainable talent
"Badass and Blind" New Mexico singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter's vast musical range can't be boxed in
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch September 2016
Put Raul Midón in a box and he’ll jump right out. Songwriter, instrumentalist, mouth-musician, soul singer, jazz improvisor, Latin songster, guitarist, baritone. None of those identifiers works alone to define his musical strengths. He is all, and more of them, and there’s no box that will contain him. His ribbons… Read More
Portland Opera’s ‘Italian Girl’: Topsy turvy playground
Wacky production gives Rossini’s bubbly East-West comic tale contemporary appeal
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch July 2016
Pizza, bathing suits, peeping-Tom camels, selfie-sticks, a chorus dressed in modest underwear and a ruler in a loin cloth were among wacky details in Portland Opera’s The Italian Girl in Algiers (L’Italiana in Algeri) at its July 22 premiere in Portland’s Newmark Theatre. These contemporary comic touches enlivened Gioachino… Read More
The Emerson Quartet honors the Haydn-Beethoven link
Chamber Music Northwest's examination of Beethoven continues with the Emerson Quartet
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch July 2016
If any group can make us hear how radical and innovative Ludwig van Beethoven’s music is, it’s the Emerson String Quartet, a regular at Chamber Music Northwest. This year marks their 11th season at the summer festival; they’ll be back for more Portland concerts throughout 2016-17. The group… Read More
CMNW: The Orion takes on Schubert and Beethoven
The Orion Quartet passes the challenges of "Death and the Maiden" and a late Beethoven quartet
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch July 2016
Orion is among the sky’s brightest constellations. You can see it with the naked eye, especially when the stars shine on its belt. In its 12th year at Chamber Music Northwest Festival, the Orion Quartet chose a good name for its consistently lauded 30-year-old group, comprised of brother violinists… Read More