Oregon ArtsWatch

ArtsWatch Archive


April MusicWatch

By Brett Campbell
April 5, 2015
Music

Welcome to April’s musical highlights. We’ll be updating this calendar occasionally throughout the month, so keep checking back as you plan your Oregon musical excursions. Be sure to let our readers know about other events in the comments section below, and don’t forget these other valuable resources:

Ashia sings and plays cello with Salem Chamber Orchestra and her band, the Bison Rouge.

Ashia sings and plays cello with Salem Chamber Orchestra and her band, the Bison Rouge.

Thunder Egg Consort
April 4
The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., Portland
A family emergency involving the guest star cellist forced local classical presenter 45th Parallel to change its spring concert. The new program and lineup (guest ensemble Thunder Egg Consort includes violinist Anthea Kreston, violist Kenji Bunch, cellist Jason Duckles, pianist Monica Ohuchi) is still worth catching, because along with folk-inspired classical music by Bartok, Brahms and Gliere, it contains a couple of pieces by Portland’s own Bunch, who’s one of America’s leading composers of his generation, including his sultry, heart melting Slow Dance for piano trio.

Ronn McFarlane
April 4
Beaverton City Library auditorium, 12375 SW Fifth Street.
The world-renowned lutenist plays Baroque, Renaissance, and ear-friendly original music whose appeal transcends early music or even classical audiences.

Elias Quartet
April 6 & 7
Lincoln Performance Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave.
The young British foursome plays string quartets from 18th (Mozart, Haydn), 19th (Beethoven, Schumann) and 20th century (Britten, Dutilleux) masters.

Delgani Quartet
April 7
United Lutheran Church, 2230 Washington St., Eugene.
Read my ArtsWatch preview.

Young Artists Debut!
April 7
Newmark Theatre! 1111 SW Broadway! Portland!
The six winners of MetroArts Inc’s annual Van Buren Concerto Competition join musicians from Oregon Symphony and Oregon Ballet Theatre in music by Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Gershwin!

David Rothman
April 8 & 22
The Old Church, SW 11th Avenue at Clay, Portland.
The pianist concludes his nearly complete traversal of Chopin’s solo piano music.

Sarah Tiedemann and Nikolas Caoile
April 9
The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave.
The Salem Chamber Orchestra musicians play a surprisingly varied program of 20th Century works for flute and piano by Copland, Dutilleux, Messiaen and more.

Eugene Vocal Arts
April 10
Beall Concert Hall, University of Oregon
The chamber vocal group drawn from Eugene Concert choir sings a diverse program of music from Korea, China, Russia, Moravia, Japan, and India.

Cascadia Composers
April 10
Temple Baptist Church, 1319 NE 7th Ave., Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of a striking, percussion-oriented concert featuring the music of Mark Vigil, Art Resnick, Lisa Ann Marsh, Paul Safar, Liz Nedela, and other Oregon composers.

Oregon Guitar Quartet

April 10

Lincoln Recital Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave.

The world premiere of OGQ founder Bryan Johanson’s Republic of Jams highlights the quartet’s final concert of the year, which unfortunately conflicts with the one above that also features top Oregon composers. Violist Anna Schaum joins the guitarists for Antonio Vivaldi’s Viola Concerto in d minor, R.V. 454.

Satori Men’s Chorus
April 11
Central Lutheran Church, 1820 NE 21st Ave., Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of this inventive concert featuring  music related to the War Between the States.

Satori Men's Chorus sang at Portland's Old Church

Satori Men’s Chorus performs in Portland.

Musica Maestrale
April 11
Polish Hall, 3832 N Interstate Ave. Portland.
The historically informed early music ensemble plays French chamber music from the era of Louis XIV on period instruments.

Salem Chamber Orchestra
April 11
Christo’s Pizzeria & April 12, Hudson Hall, Willamette University, Salem.
Saturday’s show features Portland cellist Ashia and her Bison Rouge ensemble playing her original Slavic-accented pop/folk music in a cabaret setting, while Sunday’s show adds the band and it’s music to the SCO, which also plays Alberto Ginastera’s beguiling Concertante Variations.

Con Grazia Wind Quintet
April 11
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 4033 S.E. Woodstock Blvd., Portland.
This subset of the Oregon Chamber Players performs music by Debussy, Ibert, Pierne and other French composers, abetted by French Columbia Symphony bassist Marc Bescond.

Cantus
April 12
Beall Concert Hall, University of Oregon.
One of America’s great vocal ensembles sings music by Holst, Janáček, Richard Rodgers, Robert De Cormier, and Northwest composer Stephen Hatfield, plus folk and traditional tunes from around the world and a world premiere.

The Ensemble
April 12
St. James Lutheran Church, 1315 SW Park Ave., Portland.
Mozart is most acclaimed for his operas and piano concertos, but he also composed some lovely music for voices and strings, and the choir will sing a quintet of them, including his Missa Brevis K. 275.

Oregon Symphony cellist Nancy Ives plays chamber music in Vancouver.

Oregon Symphony cellist Nancy Ives plays chamber music in Vancouver.

Nancy Ives and Cary Lewis, DTQ String Quartet

April 12, Kiggins Theatre, Vancouver, WA.

The program includes a pair of great Dvorak works — his cello sonata Silent Woods and his famous “American” quartet — and one of Brahms’s gorgeous cello sonatas.

Oregon Symphony
April 12–13
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland.
Renowned French pianist Jean-Philippe Collard joins the band for Bartok’s great final piano concerto, and the orchestra plays Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances and another valedictory work, Sibelius’s Tapiola.

Portland Opera
April 14
Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., Portland.
The company’s young resident artists sing music (composed by the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and more) made famous by the great hoofer Fred Astaire.

Avner Dorman Showcase

April 16

Beall Concert Hall, University of Oregon.

As part of his Eugene Symphony residency, the Israeli-American composer works with University of Oregon percussion and composition students, University Singers, and string quartet in an afternoon recital of his music and that of UO composers before the Eugene Symphony plays his music in concert that night.

Composer Avner Dorman's music resounds in Eugene.

Composer Avner Dorman’s music resounds in Eugene.

Eugene Symphony 

April 16

Hult Center, Silva Concert Hall, 7th & Willamette, Eugene.

The orchestra, which is ramping up its commitment to contemporary music, performs Avner Dorman’s exhilarating 2006 double percussion concerto Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! and 2012’s Astrolatry, along with Beethoven’s Symphony #6.

Martinu Quartet
April 16 & 17
Lincoln Performance Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave.
Read my Willamette Week preview and Jack Gabel’s ArtsWatch preview of the Czech foursome’s concerts featuring music by Portland’s Tomas Svoboda, Janacek, Smetana, Dvorak and their namesake.

Third Angle New Music
April 16 & 17
Studio 2@Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont, Portland.

Read my Willamette Week preview of the chamber ensemble’s concerts featuring the music rising young composer Jacob Cooper.

Lisa Ann Marsh

April 17

Portland Piano Company

One of Oregon’s most widely appealing composers offers a showcase of her new chamber music, featuring musicians Connie Titterington, Barbara Heilmair, Melissa Robinson, Vakare Petroliunaite, Dustin Silva, Marilyn Maricle and Brian Marsh.

3 Leg Torso, Rogue Valley Symphony

April 17, Southern Oregon University Music Hall, Ashland, April 18, Craterian Theatre at the Collier Center for the Performing Arts, Medford, April 19, Grants Pass High.

Oregon’s most cheerfully uncategorizable world chamber music ensemble joins the big band in 3LT originals.

 

NPP All Star Quartet

April 17

Alberta Abbey, Portland.

Read my Willamette Week preview of this concert featuring national and Oregon jazz luminaries.

 

“The Marriage of Figaro,” PSU Opera and Orchestra
April 17, 18, 21, 24, 26
Lincoln Performance Hall, Portland State University.
The school’s nationally acclaimed opera program presents Mozart’s marital masterpiece, in Italian with English supertitles.

Joined Voices
April 18
First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave. Portland.
Portland singer-songwriter Alan Singley and MarchFourth Marching Band trombonist and Camas High School choir director Ethan Chessin convene avant-garde composers, indie rockers, and the 150-voice choir Camas High School Choir in the premiere of nine new works, including settings of Gary Snyder poems, arrangements of songs by local band Sama Dams, new pieces by Prague-based composer Felix Obelix, and more.

Choral Arts Ensemble
April 18–19
The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave. Portland.
The choir sings music by Viennese masters Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and more.

Vancouver Symphony

April 18-19

Skyview Concert Hall, 1300 NW 139th Street, Vancouver, WA.

The orchestra’s annual young artists concert features the winning teenage soloists in concerti by Sibelius, Prokofiev, and Grieg, and the band also plays Honegger’s fifth symphony and Ravel’s The Waltz.

Oregon Bach Collegium

April 19
United Lutheran Church, 2230 Washington St, Eugene.

The flute comes to the fore in this historically informed concert of French Baroque music by Blavet, LeClair, and Barrière plus a pair of  Telemann’s delightful “Paris” quartets, all played on period instruments including traverso ( Kim Pineda and Sarah Pyle), baroque violin (Michael Sand), cello (Marc Vanscheeuwijck), viola da gamba (cello, Ann Shaffer), and harpsichord (Margret Gries).

The Mousai
April 19
First Presbyterian Church, 1200 SW Alder, Portland.
As part of the ever-engrossing Celebration Works series, the local chamber ensemble plays story-oriented music by Oregon composer Mike Curtis, contemporary American composer Haskell Small, a Shakespeare setting by 20th century American composer Vincent Persichetti, featuring dramatic interludes from King Lear performed by the superb Portland actor/musician John Vergin, and a woodwind quintet classic from Leos Janacek.

Classical Up Close
Various Portland-area venues.
April 20-May 3
Read my ArtsWatch preview of the annual free chamber music festival featuring Oregon Symphony musicians who bring the music out of the Schnitzer Concert Hall and out to audiences at such varied venues as American Legion Post #134, Powell’s Books, and Meals on Wheels, with a special April 20 benefit concert at Tony Starlight’s Showroom, 1125 SE Madison.

Friends of Chamber Music brings back Chanticleer.

Friends of Chamber Music brings back Chanticleer.

Chanticleer
April 24
Kaul Auditorium, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of the latest Oregon appearance by America’s most renowned contemporary vocal ensemble.

 “Hänsel und Gretel,” University of Oregon Opera Ensemble.

April 24 and 26

Soreng Theater, Hult Center for the Performing Arts, Eugene.

UO students perform Engelbert Humperdinck’s version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, sung in German with English-language supertitles

In Mulieribus
April 24, St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, 1112 SE 41st Street, Portland, and April 26, Proto-Cathedral of St. James, Vancouver, WA.
The sublime local female vocal quartet sings Renaissance and other music inspired by the biblical Song of Songs.

 

Sound of Late

April 24

Broadway House, Eugene.

Read Gary Ferrington’s ArtsWatch preview of the latest young new music ensemble bringing contemporary sounds to Oregon ears.


Portland Baroque Orchestra
April 24–25, First Baptist Church, SW Taylor at 12th Ave.  Portland, and April 26, Kaul Auditorium, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Portland. April 28, Beall Concert Hall, University of Oregon.
Violin goddess Monica Huggett completes her 20th season as PBO music director by leading the historically informed orchestra through those most popular of violin concerti, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, plus music by Locatelli, Locke and more.

Cherry Blossom Musical Arts

April 25

First Christian Church, 1166 Oak Street, Eugene.

This concert of new chamber music by one of Oregon’s finest composers, Paul Safar, features the Delgani String Quartet, Pickles and Peppers Clarinet Quartet, Richard Leebrick, pianists Ben Farrell and Safar, juggler Andrew Teem, singer Nancy Wood, trumpeter David Bender and more.

Northwest Piano Trio

April 25

Gordon House, Oregon Garden, Silverton.

Now boasting a new pianist, Susan McDaniel, the new threesome plays trios by Brahms, Bernstein and Haydn.

Ethan Sperry conducts Oregon Repertory Singers.

Ethan Sperry conducts Oregon Repertory Singers.

Oregon Repertory Singers
April 25–6
First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson St. Portland.
The city’s superb large choir sings the Northwest premiere of leading contemporary Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin’s operatic sacred work Sealed Angel and Leonard Bernstein’s glorious Chichester Psalms.

Oregon Symphony
April 25, 27
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland.

Guest conductor Gilbert Varga leads a meat-and-potatoes (or maybe schnitzel und spaetzle) program of seconds: Haydn and Brahms’s second symphonies, Mendelssohn’s inevitable second violin concerto, featuring soloist Karen Gomyo.

Festival Chorale Oregon

April 26

Elsinore Theatre, 170 High St NE, Salem.

A cantor, four vocal soloists, and youth chorus join the orchestra join forces in a performance of  To Be Certain of the Dawn, the Holocaust memorial oratorio written by the excellent Minnesota-based composer Stephen Paulus, who died last year.

Camerata PYP

April 26

Wieden+Kennedy building, 224 NW 13th Ave., Portland.

Read my Willamette Week preview of the latest concert by the chamber orchestra of the Portland Youth Philharmonic.

fEARnoMUSIC

April 26

Chapel at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Portland.

One of Oregon music’s most valuable musical institutions, FNM’s annual “Hearing the Future” concerts feature and incubate new music by young Oregon composers, this time including pieces influenced by jazz, dub-step, classical and film music.

Portland Chamber Orchestra
April 25-26
Lewis and Clark College, Agnes Flanagan Chapel. Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of the orchestra’s celebration of 20th and 21st century American music.

Chamber Music Amici

April 27

The Shedd, Broadway & High Streets, Eugene.

The great Oregon Bach Festival, Chamber Music Northwest and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra oboist Allan Vogel returns to Oregon with flutist Janice Tipton Oregon Bach Festival oboist Allan Vogel and flutist Janice Tipton for a week-long residency that culminates in a concert of Baroque music (by Telemann, Fasch, and J. C. Bach) that also features Amici violinists Pilar Bradshaw and Sharon Schuman, Amici cellist Steven Pologe, and guest musicians Holland Phillips, on violin and viola, and Julia Brown, on harpsichord.

Lyrical Strings Duo, Agnieszka Laska Dancers & Chervona Bambino

April 30
Alberta Rose Theater, 3000 NE Alberta St. Portland.
Musicians and dancers combine in music inspired by Moravian and gypsy sources, featuring folk music and works by Leos Janacek, Antonín Dvořák, Frédéric Chopin, Henryk Wieniawski, Mykola Lysenko, Jeno Hubay, and Bohuslav Martinů, accompanied by Laska’s original choreography.

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