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Weekend MusicWatch

By Brett Campbell
August 12, 2015
Music

Even on a slow weekend in Oregon music, you can enjoy a classic jazz festival in Eugene, a contemporary Oregon jazz festival in Portland, classical music festivals in Jacksonville, Bend and Sunriver, and more. As always, please let our readers know about other Oregon music performances that grab you by noting them in the comments section below.

Goebel, Friesen and Doggett performed at Portland Piano Company.

Circle 3 Trio performs at Montavilla Jazz Festival.

Sunriver Music Festival
August 12-16
Historic Great Hall, Sunriver Resort, and Tower Theater, Bend.
Wednesday night’s concert at Sunriver resort features the world premiere of the orchestral version of Canadian pianist and composer Heather Schmidt’s Lunar Reflections, along with Haydn’s graceful C major Cello Concerto (with soloist Amit Peled) and one of the greatest of all symphonies: Mozart’s 41st and final one. Saturday’s show at Bend’s Tower Theater offers a pair of Aaron Copland’s greatest hits (Fanfare for the Common Man and “The Promise of Living” from his opera, The Tender Land), Mendelssohn’s ever popular Symphony #4, contemporary British composer John Rutter’s Suite Antique, and Leonard Bernstein’s beautiful Chichester Psalms, featuring the Central Oregon Mastersingers. Pianist and Cliburn competition award winner Sean Chen gets a solo showcase at the Sunriver resort Monday, with music by Ravel, Chopin, Debussy, Bartok, Wagner and more.

Sean Chen performs at the Sunriver Festival.

Sean Chen performs at the Sunriver Festival.

“Fine & Dandy”
Oregon Festival of American Music
August 13-16
Jaqua Concert Hall, John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, 285 E Broadway, Eugene.
Read my Eugene Weekly preview of the festival’s tribute to the hot jazz of the 1920s and early 1930s.

Cantores in Ecclesia performs at the William Byrd Festival.

Cantores in Ecclesia performs at the William Byrd Festival.

William Byrd Festival
August 14-16
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Holy Rosary Church, and St. Stephen’s Church, Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of this weekend’s sacred services and performances, including lectures, an organ recital by Mark Williams, a Mass and other choral music performed by Cantores in Ecclesia.

Darrell Grant's band performs at Montavilla Jazz festival.

Pianist Darrell Grant’s band headlines the Montavilla Jazz festival.

Montavilla Jazz Festival
August 15-16
Portland Metro Arts, 9003 SE Stark St. Portland.
The rising young festival is becoming one of the summer’s finest, this time convening baker’s dozen of Oregon’s finest jazzers, including the great Portland pianist-composer Darrell Grant’s new band All4Naught, Alan Jones Sextet, David Friesen’s Circle 3 Trio, George Colligan Quartet, Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, Rich Halley 4, Joe Manis Trio, Tim Willcox’s Superjazzers, and more.

Britt Classical Festival
August 14-15
Britt Pavilion and Performance Garden, Jacksonville.
The great violinist James Ehnes joins the Britt Orchestra for the August 14 concert in Samuel Barber’s stirring Violin Concerto, and the orchestra also plays a strong, electronically enhanced piece by the great young hope of American orchestral composition, Bay Area-based composer Mason Bates, plus a Brahms symphony. The August 15 closing concert gets all Frenchified with classics by Dukas (hint: brooms, buckets, mouse), Ravel and Debussy (music for ballets performed in Paris in 1912-13), and still another contemporary work, Guillaume Connesson’s exuberant Aleph.

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