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The January news and notes starts here!

By Barry Johnson
January 9, 2014
News & Notes

The holiday and then the post-holiday fog are clearing, both literally and as a metaphor for your correspondent’s mental state. All that means is that we’re back at it, bringing you the delightful tidbits of information, news, heavily biased opinions, and random white noise you’ve come to expect!

January is looking jammed with art world goodies, which is brilliant because otherwise it gets pretty cold and damp in the ArtsWatch cave, counting the bats and newts. You’re going to have to hurry to catch the Samurai! show at the Portland Art Museum, which Bob Hicks reviewed so well for us way back in October. It closes on January 12, so sharpen those blades now. Otherwise, it’s new stuff and more new stuff.

And so we begin…again.

CS Price,  Abstract Landscape, 1949, oil on canvas, The Blanche Eloise Day Ellis and Robert Hale Ellis Memorial Collection, Portland Art Museum

CS Price, Abstract Landscape, 1949, oil on canvas, The Blanche Eloise Day Ellis and Robert Hale Ellis Memorial Collection, Portland Art Museum

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POV Dance will combine four of our favorite things in “3X3,” which opens tonight: music (by composers Katie Griesar and Luke Matter), architecture (by Portland’s legendary architect AE Doyle), film (Patrick Weishampel/BLANKEYE) and dance, courtesy of POV itself, led by Mandy Cregan and Noel Plemmons. The action takes place among the three buildings of the Left Bank Project, 240 N. Broadway, as small groups are led through the rooms, hallways, stairwells, nooks and crannies, with video projected from cameras, some attached to the dancers.

POV DANCE 3×3 from patrick weishampel on Vimeo.

Tickets are scarce for the run, which ends on January 26.

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The Phame Academy, which obliterates misconceptions about art, developmental disabilities and their inspirational intersection, is celebrating its 30th anniversary (PHAME30!)this year with a busy calendar of events, starting with “Unlimited Ambition,” a collection of short plays by students of the Academy. The show, part of Fertile Ground, starts at 2 pm in the atrium of the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., on February 1.

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The Harvard Glee Club will be performing a new choral work by Oregon composer Robert Kyr (among other things) TONIGHT in Eugene, but through the magic of livestreaming you can watch and listen in, even if you don’t have a ticket. The concert starts at 7 pm.

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It’s been a while since Trey McIntyre was energizing Oregon Ballet Theatre as resident choreography, but a lot of us still think of him as a “Portland guy,” because he was just that charismatic. Then he started the Trey McIntyre Project and set up camp and dance company in Boise, visiting here on occasion, while continuing to make dances as an independent choreographer.

McIntyre has decided to shuffle the deck, though, announcing that he’s closing up shop as a full-time dance company and joining his dance activities with film and photography work. The Idaho Statesman reports that he’ll continue to live in Boise, however.

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Hey, didn’t we just hear this guy? Rafal Blechacz, who opened Arnaldo Cohen’s inaugural season as Portland Piano International’s artistic director this fall, won the $300,000 Gilmore Prize, which is the piano equivalent to the MacArthur genius grant except that it’s given only once every four years. Blechacz played two programs here, centered on Chopin, which made sense because his most recent album for Deutsche Grammophon is “Chopin Polonaises.”

Here’s the ceremony from New York and a concert by Bechacz (which begins around minute 7).

Of the seven pianists who’ve won the Gilmore since 1991, four have played Portland Piano International: David Owen Norris, Piotr Anderszewski, Ingrid Filter, Kirill Gerstein and, now, Blechacz.

Portland Piano International’s next recitals are with Vladimir Feltsman (Jan 12 + 13). The 13-14 season concludes with Vadym Kholodenko (Feb 2 + 3), Daniil Trifonov (Mar 9) and Garrick Ohlsson (May 4). Arnaldo Cohen will make his 14-15 season announcement immediately following Garrick Ohlsson’s Newmark Theatre recital.​

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