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.
“All of these wonderful sounds can meld together to create the atmosphere”: CMNW 2022 in retrospect
A consideration of Chamber Music Northwest’s five-week summer festival.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch August 2022
When Soovin Kim and Gloria Chien were hired in 2020 as Chamber Music Northwest’s artistic co-directors, they didn’t imagine that 2022 would be the year they could show their stuff, due to Covid restrictions that limited live concerts.
This summer’s festival unveiled their brilliance, even if attendance was down from pre-Covid years. Read More
The light that once put the sun to shame: Orpheus in Portland
New opera company OrpheusPDX debuts at Lincoln Hall with a magnificent new production of the Monteverdi classic.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch August 2022
Claudio Monteverdi’s 1607 L’Orfeo, credited as the first operatic masterpiece, is based on a magnificent myth and captivating story. But four centuries ago is a long time! Yet, OrpheusPDX’s debut show Aug. 4 at Portland State University’s almost full 475-seat Lincoln Hall illustrated a successful revival, ensuring the opera’s staying power. Read More
Killin’ it with Gilles Vonsattel and the Sinta Sax Quartet
The sax quartet and virtuoso pianist joined forces for a surprising CMNW concert.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch August 2022
The Sinta Saxophone Quartet, alarmingly good and ravishingly charming, took the audience by surprise with its highly diverse program, American Voices, July 24 and 25 (I heard the July 25th concert at the Kaul Auditorium). Theirs was the tightest and brightest concert at the spectacularly varied Chamber Music Northwest’s five-week festival. Read More
All these ways of being: The musical worlds of Reena Esmail
An exchange with the Indian-American composer, featured recently at Chamber Music Northwest and set to return next month as this year’s Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival composer-in-residence.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch July 2022
Reena Esmail’s cross-cultural music is making star turns in Oregon concerts this summer.
At two Chamber Music Northwest concerts July 17 and 18, violinist Vijay Gupta–who happens to be Esmail’s husband–played her Darshan: Bihag and When the Violin. After the concert, Portland composer David Schiff called Gupta “a rock star” and was blown away by Esmail’s music, which was preceded by poetry and delivered with an intensity that the couple holds in common. Read More
Comfortable with uncertainty: A back-and-forth with Alistair Coleman
The young composer, whose music was featured on a string of recent concerts at Chamber Music Northwest, discusses his formative musical moments.
Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch August 2022
Alistair Coleman and Zlatomir Fung play a game on Spotify. One picks a tune and the other tries to figure out the composer, time period or piece. “Even if we couldn’t identify the exact piece, we could still discern the composer or time period,” said Coleman, who fondly call himself and Fung “nerds.” Read More
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
