by GARY FERRINGTON
Eugene, for many Oregonians, is a weekend destination for Duck football and other athletic events. Few venture to Oregon’s second largest city for weekday dance, theater, and music performances, which is unfortunate given the diversity of outstanding cultural events scheduled throughout the year.
University of Oregon’s Beall Hall is renowned for its unparalleled acoustics. Photo: Gary Ferrington
This fall, Internet webcasts make it possible for online viewers to experience, from wherever they may be, a number of exciting musical events “live” from the University of Oregon’s venerable Beall Concert Hall.
The following concerts can be viewed on the School of Music and Dance’s multi-camera live-stream network. Check the SOMD events calendar for additional programs that may be scheduled throughout November and December as well as published program notes. (Read more about webcasts in my earlier ArtsWatch story, Islands in the Stream: UO Live Streaming Brings New Music to Oregon.)
Dossin Studio graduate pianists perform. Photo: UO School of Music & Dance.
Liszt Birthday Celebration
Thursday, October 22 at 7:30 pm.
A very special installment of the annual Franz Liszt celebration of the composer’s 204th birthday features six graduate pianists from the studio of Alexandre Dossin joining forces to perform Liszt’s monumental Transcendental Etudes, a cycle of twelve etudes considered some of the most difficult in the piano repertoire. Performers include: Eduardo Moreira, Ednaldo Borba, Julianne Shepard, Andrei Andreyev, Alessandro Andrade da Fonseca, and Jorge Briceño. The concert will begin with a short video message by Alan Walker, an English-Canadian musicologist and university professor best known as a biographer and scholar of composer Franz Liszt. This cadre of pianists, now on tour, will also perform Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes in Portland at 7 pm on Saturday, November 7 at Michelle’s Piano, 600 SE Stark St.
University Symphony Orchestra
Saturday, October 24 at 7:30 pm
This evening’s repertoire will feature, among other works, Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 completed in 1793/94 and popularly known as the Military Symphony, thanks to its second movement’s robust fanfares for trumpets and percussion. David M. Jacobs and Evan Harger conduct the University of Oregon Symphony Orchestra.
Oregon Media Project
Tuesday, October 27 at 7:30 pm
UO violin alumnus Wyatt True and Oregon State University piano faculty member David Servias will present the Oregon Multimedia Project, a concert combining photographs of Oregon landscapes with live performances of The Air is a Chamber and The Earth is a Cell by J. M. Gerraughty, and The Activity of Sand and Movie Music for Portland by Benjamin Krause — all new works commissioned for this concert. Alexander LaFollett’s Violin Sonata in E Rhodian will open the evening’s performance. Composers Gerraughty, Krause, and LaFollett are graduates of the School of Music and Dance composition studio.
Oregon Composers Forum (OCF) Fall Concert
Tuesday, November 10 at 7:30 pm
This is the first of five OCF concerts this year premiering new solo and ensemble music by undergraduate and graduate students from the UO composition studios of Dr. Robert Kyr and Dr. David Crumb. Featured work includes Passacaglia by Emily Korzeniewski, Echoes from the Void by Aidan Ramsay, Prayer for Roethke by Stephen Anthony Rawson, Tempest by Michael Dekovich, Stilly Sleep by Ramsey Sadaka, 7F by Cara Haxo, Wind Quintet No. 1 by Martin Quiroga Jr., June by Madeline Cannon, Illusion of Fog by Tao Li, Spaces by Izabel Auystin, Kafkaesque by Benjamin J. Penwell, and Cascade by Nathan Engelmann.
Mortal Sphere
Friday, November 13 at 7:30 pm
The renowned soprano and UO faculty member Laura Decher Wayte along with her musical collaborators, pianist Nathalie Fortin and saxophonist Idit Shner perform Samuel Barber’s beautiful Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Ellwood Derr’s musical adaptation of “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” and Ralph Vaughn Williams’s Blake Songs. The stage will be visually transformed through a unique marriage of sound and sight of otherworldly landscapes and moving shadows created by an original art installation of large hanging wire sculptures constructed by mixed-media artist Lillian Almeida.
Chamber Music on Campus
Tuesday, November 17 at 7:30 pm
Student chamber ensembles present an evening of music including Brahms’s Piano Trio, op.8; Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and piano; Bartók’s Duets for two violins; Shostakovich’s Piano Trio no. 2; Glinka’s Trio Pathétique for clarinet, bassoon, and piano; and Desenclos’s Saxophone Quartet.
Gary Ferrington is a Senior Instructor Emeritus, Instructional Systems Technology, College of Education, University of Oregon. He is an advocate for new music and serves as project coordinator for Oregon ComposersWatch .
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