It might have come to your attention that six days from now, on Monday, August 21, the sun will be temporarily smitten from the sky across the nation, on a path from the Oregon Coast to Charleston, South Carolina. Here at ArtsWatch World Headquarters we had planned to ignore this astronomical anomaly, figuring you’d be hearing plenty about it elsewhere, until we received a note from All Classical Radio.
The network’s seven Oregon outlets and internet stream, it seems, will be playing an Eclipse Soundtrack from 8 in the morning to noon on the Day of Darkness: little ditties ranging from Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra (you might recall it from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey) to Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Debussy’s Claire de Lune, and more. The broadcast will hit a high note at 10:19 a.m. – when the eclipse hits totality in Oregon – with the world premiere of The Body of the Moon, a commissioned piece by Desmond Earley, performed by Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, cellist Nancy Ives, percussionist Chris Whyte, and improv vocalist Erick Valle.
Might we suggest, if jazz radio KMHD wants to get in the action, spinning that old blues lament Careless Love (maybe the Ray Charles version) for its verse “I once was blind but now I see / love has made a fool of me” – and maybe, once the sun starts to peek back from behind the moon, the old Duke Ellington hit I’m Beginning To See the Light? There are dozens of good versions to choose from. One of Billy Eckstine’s might be nice.
FREE DAY AT THE MUSEUM: Sunday, August 20, is Family Free Day at the Portland Art Museum, with free admission 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and several events tied in with the current exhibition Quest for Beauty: The Architecture, Landscapes, and Collections of John Yeon. And while you’re there, you might want to check out the new exhibit Representing: Photographs Of, By, and For African Americans, which continues through December 3. The earliest of these candid photos, which date from the late 1900s through the 1990s, come from the estate of Portlanders Carl and Judge Mercedes Diez: He was a Tuskegee Airman, she was the first black woman to be admitted to the Oregon State Bar. Others come from the collections of Peter J. Cohen and Zun Lee.
THE SHINING LEGACY OF KATHERINE DUNN: The occasional parlor game of Who Wrote the Best Oregon Novel usually starts with Ken Kesey and winds through the likes of H.L. Davis, Ursula LeGuin, Chang-Rae Lee, Rene Denfeld, Tom Spanbauer, Jean Auel, Craig Lesley, Molly Gloss, Patrick deWitt, and others. But if you want to make a case for the late, great Katherine Dunn, and in particular her strange and humane and astonishingly good novel Geek Love, you’ll get no argument here. Dunn died last year at age 70, and her influence on the Portland and American literary scenes only continues to grow. It’s laid out in The Horror of Normalcy: Katherine Dunn, Geek Love, and Cult Literature, an exhibition from her literary archive in the Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College. It opened in April and ends August 31, so consider this a final nudge and final call.
BRETT CAMPBELL’S WEEKLY MUSIC PICKS:
The 40th anniversary season continues Wednesday with the Central Oregon Mastersingers, vocal soloists, and pianist Sean Chen joining the orchestra’s for two choral masterpieces: Beethoven’s oddly intriguing Choral Fantasy (kind of a dry run for his Symphony #9) and Mozart’s dramatic Requiem. The Mastersingers, vocal soloists, and orchestra return Friday for an American Songbook pops concert featuring music by Gershwin (a suite from Porgy and Bess), Bernstein, Sousa, Duke Ellington, John Williams and more.
On Sunday, orchestra members play a pair of sweet Romantic serenades: Dvorak’s Serenade for Winds and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, plus a J.S. Bach Triple Concerto. On Monday, pianist Sean Chen gives a solo recital with music by Beethoven, Ravel, and Chopin.
Wednesday and Friday, Church of the Nazarene, Bend; Sunday and Monday, Sunriver Resort Great Hall.
ArtsWatch links
Lungs: She’s having a baby. Christa Morletti reviews the new show at Third Rail. As it turns out, it’s personal.
Artists creating space for galleries. With Portland real estate prices going nuts, how do artists find affordable spaces to show their work? You’d be surprised, Nim Wunnan writes.
Looking back on Chamber Music Northwest and its focus on women composers:
- Ordo Virtutum: Sister Act 1. Brett Campbell praises the choir In Mulieribus and the music of Hildegard of Bingen, and wonders: Was this concert too much of a good thing?
- The Other Mozart: Sister Act 2. Campbell delves into Silvia Milo’s monodrama about Wolfgang’s talented older sister Maria Anna, whose own music was stifled by sexism.
- Independent women. Matthew Andrews reviews The Ghost of Ravel, a series of concerts of music written and performed by women: “None of the women on these concerts had to be The Woman. No one had to be the lone female voice in a room full of male voices, answering for an entire gender while Beethoven gets to just be Beethoven.”
Becoming welcome: giving center stage to all artists. Mary McDonald-Lewis looks at what happened at a meeting sparked by a contentious ArtsWatch review, and suggests what comes next.
Finding Jesus, finding herself. Hailey Bachrach reviews Endless Oceans, Corey Maier’s solo show about sexuality, religion, and other searches for meaning.
Caged dreams: Madame Butterfly in Seattle. Angela Allen reviews Seattle Opera’s newest production of the Puccini standby featuring the “superb” Yasko Sato.