Birds and soaring songs flew by during Resonance Ensemble’s powerful concert March 17 at Alberta Rose Theatre. No surprise the company of well-balanced voices (there were 19 for this performance), founded by visionary choral director Katherine FitzGibbon, has stuck around for 15 years. Once again, Resonance let us in on poetic, socially conscious music, this time by Black contemporary composers, that inspires us to fly a bit higher. Read More

Whimsical, warm, winsome.

The Snowy Day, Portland Opera’s one-act hour-long spring piece, playing through March 24 at the Newmark Theatre, is built on the beguiling 1962 children’s picture book by Ezra Jack Keats. The book–more than the opera, which was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera and premiered there in 2021–was a game-changer. It was the first children’s book from a major publisher (Viking Press) to feature a Black child, and the first prestigious Caldecott Medal-winner (1963) to tell a Black kid’s story. That was some six decades ago, and many people, including former First Lady Michelle Obama and Native American best-selling author Sherman Alexie, consider it one of the first books they loved. Today, you can’t find it at the library. It is usually checked out. Read More

SEATTLE — It’s about time that Seattle Opera got in on staging a Black-composed opera with its current co-production of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.

Black operas have stormed the stages in the past several years with riveting productions, a sea change in programming. Count among them Blue, The Central Park Five, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Omar and Champion, several of which we’ve seen in the Northwest. The operas have been compelling and deeply shocking, showing slices of life and pockets of terror that most of us, if we are white, never experience. Read More

It’s old news that David Bowie’s final album Blackstar came out in January 2016, two days before Bowie died of cancer at 69 years old. Of course, his swansong LP, which Rolling Stone called his “best ever,” never spun out live concerts. Bowie kept his declining health a secret until the end of his life, so who knew there would be no more Bowie appearances? And why is “Blackstar” the album’s name? Is it a word associated with mortality and immortality? Perhaps the best explanation came from Blackstar producer and longtime Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, who called the album “a parting gift” – and a gift that keeps on giving with the run of Blackstar Symphony. Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – More and more, stupendous operas such as Omar, the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winner, are taking us on real-life journeys through America, many of those journeys unspeakably sad yet somehow uplifting. These searing operatic travels are based on true stories and histories worth bringing to life, to the stage, and to our understanding. Read More

Virtuoso jazz musician Dan Balmer will open the 2024 PDXJazz Festival concert starring Grammy-nominated guitarist Julian Lage on Feb. 28 at Portland’s Revolution Hall. A generation or so younger than Balmer, the innovative Lage has a reputation for “impeccable technique, free association, and the spirit of infinite possibility,” according to his press materials. Read More

Growing up, the “Messiah” was a sure sign of Christmas. My mother put the well-worn LP of Handel’s three-hour sacred oratorio on the turntable and cranked up the stereo as loud as she could. Even the neighbors could hear it. I loved it. It was thrilling.

But.
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It’s been said before: The viola is under-appreciated. The violin, the cello, even the harp and the double bass these days, attract more attention among the string family.

The instrument deserves more praise, especially when played as dazzlingly as it was by Paul Laraia of the phenomenally creative and well-honed Catalyst Quartet Nov. 30 at Portland’s The Old Church. The sound of the viola’s velvety alto in talented hands makes your heart beat harder and faster. Read More

Portland State University Opera’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant was a charmer. The four performances Nov. 25 through Dec. 3 (the opera I saw) were sold out in the 84-seat Lincoln Hall Studio Theater. And for good reasons. The production hit the right chords: original, playful, an ideal length at 100 minutes in two acts, and family-friendly. Read More

In mid-October, music fans received an email announcing that the snug beloved 1905 jazz club in North Portland’s Mississippi neighborhood was on the brink of financial disaster. The final show would be that night. Read More