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.
Long lingering finishes: Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival returns
Wine valley festival pairs old world and contemporary music.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch August 2022
Going on its seventh season, Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival has consistently shown itself to be a forward-looking mid-summer event. Read More
A beginner every day: Considering Zlatomir Fung
The 23-year-old cellist’s recent visit to Oregon for Chamber Music Northwest included concerts, a master class, an afternoon with four cellists even younger than him, and “one of the best string recitals” Soovin Kim has ever heard.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch July 2022
In 2019, Zlatomir Fung–who has been playing his cello around Portland this summer–won the International Tchaikovsky Competition, among the most prestigious honors awarded to young classical musicians. Read More
‘A slight breeze pushing against my youthful cheeks’: A review of ‘Celilo Falls: We Were There’
Collaboration among Joe Cantrell, Ed Edmo, and Nancy Ives continues Portland Chamber Orchestra’s championing of new music.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch June 2022
Blown away and overwhelmed.
Those twin feelings dominated my response to the sold-out multimedia performance Celilo Falls: We Were There June 5 at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Northeast Portland. Read More
Worth a crowd’s attention: A review of David Schiff’s ‘Prefontaine’
Schiff’s latest, a tribute to the esteemed runner, was premiered by the Eugene Symphony.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch June 2022
Portland composer David Schiff’s much anticipated Prefontaine premiered with the Eugene Symphony June 4 at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon. The concert was not sold out at the cavernous 2,448-seat Silva Concert Hall, a big place to fill. But the stunning music was worth a crowd’s attention. Read More
From exhilaration to exhaustion to final victory: David Schiff’s summer premieres
The retired Reed College composition professor’s “Prefontaine” and “Vineyard Rhythms” come to Eugene and Portland.
Originally Published in Classical Voice North America and Oregon Arts Watch May 2022
David Schiff is one of Oregon’s– well, America’s – most prolific composers of chamber and symphonic music. Add to those genres his knack for writing jazz, opera, Irish folk, rock ’n’ roll, klezmer, Jewish liturgical, pop and art song. Yet, to accomplish this huge body of work, he has not lived the isolated life of a self-absorbed artist.
Just the opposite. Read More
Imani Winds premieres northwest composers at Alberta Rose Theatre
The restless wind quintet’s blissful concert featured new music co-commissioned by CMNW, OBF, and Anima Mundi.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch May 2022
Neither a note of Bach nor Beethoven, Mozart nor Mendelssohn was played–but three world premieres by Pacific Northwest composers of color amply compensated for Old World nostalgia at Imani Winds’ sold-out concert April 28 at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Northeast Portland. Read More
Opening our ears: Fear No Music’s concert of Asian music
FNM performs music by Asian and Asian-American composers at The Old Church.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch May 2022
Fear No Music’s“Asian Resilience and Joy” concert May 9 at The Old Church in downtown Portland was partly about the surprising happiness that occurs when we open our ears to more than Western sounds and rhythms. Read More
Wielding Terrible Swift Sword Of Words In Art Pitched Against Racism
Originally Published in Classical Voice North America April 2022
PORTLAND — Call it a collage, a spoken-word piece, a one-man show, or a multi-media chamber collaboration. My Words Are My Sword fits all of those descriptions. Written and performed by spoken-word artist, actor and self-proclaimed “inspirationalist” Phil Darius (duh-REE-us) Wallace, the Portland world premiere delivered a trenchant message about America’s Black history and appalling legacy of racism. Read More
Glad to be swinging: Shif, Schiff, and Miró at The Old Church
Music for clarinet and strings by Benny Goodman, Schiff, Schickele, and Mozart in Chamber Music Northwest concert.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch April 2022
It was almost all Shifrin and Schiff at Chamber Music Northwest’s “Rendezvous with Benny” on April 3 at Portland’s The Old Church.
The two Davids—David Shifrin, the master clarinetist and former artistic director of CMNW, and David Schiff, the Portland composer–are Goliaths at collaboration. Read More
The appalling miscarriage of justice: ‘Central Park Five’ at Portland Opera
PO’s dramatic, harrowing staging of the Pulitzer-winning opera.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch March 2022
Absolutely stunning. Riveting. The best and most ambitious production Portland Opera has presented in my 31 years of reviewing. PO continues to up the ante.
I’m referring to the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Central Park Five, which has two more performances March 24 and March 26 at the Newmark Theatre. Read More