Oregon ArtsWatch

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Weekend MusicWatch

By Brett Campbell
October 7, 2015
Music

For more information on classical music performances, check the All Classical radio calendar, and please let our readers know about other weekend musical treats in the comments below.

Zakir Hussain’s Crosscurrents
October 7
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway Ave. Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of this jazzy Kalakendra concert featuring two of the greatest living improvising musicians.

“Musica Poetica”
UO Collegium Musicum
October 7
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon.
Graduate students from the University of Oregon’s early music performance group plays music by early seventeenth-century Venetian composer Dario Castello.


The City of Tomorrow 
October 8, The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave. Portland.
October 9, Pendleton Center for the Arts, 214 North Main, Pendleton.
Read my Willamette Week preview (but note that the correct date for the Portland show is October 8, not October 7) of the latest show by the country’s most inventive wind quintet, and my Willamette Week profile of the group when it first played Portland.

Wayne Horvitz brings his new jazz and poetry project to Eugene and Portland. Photo: Daniel Sheehan.

Wayne Horvitz brings his new jazz and poetry project to Eugene and Portland. Photo: Daniel Sheehan.

“Some Places Are Forever Afternoon”
October 8, Michelle’s Pianos, 600 SE Stark St. Portland.
October 9, The Shedd, Eugene.
Wayne Horvitz Ensemble
 Read my Eugene Weekly preview of the great Seattle jazz composer/pianist’s performances of music inspired by the poetry of the revered Northwest poet Richard Hugo, with readings of the poems (by Hugo scholar Frances McCue) interpolated between performances of the music they inspired.

3 Leg Torso
October 8, Adriana Hill Grand Ballroom, 918 SW Yamhill #2, Portland.
October 9, Rice Hall, Western Oregon University, 345 Monmouth Ave N. Monmouth.
In Thursday’s show, the cheerfully undefinable world music/jazz/classical ensemble performs the latest in its series of benefits for Northwest Housing Alternatives (NWHA), which helps develop affordable housing in Oregon.

Guy Mendilow Ensemble
October 8
Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park at Market. Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of the Jerusalem musician’s band’s performance of (Thursday) and talk about (Friday) music of the Sephardic Jews.

 The New Mastersounds
October 7, Hi-Fi Music Hall, Eugene.
October 8, Wonder Ballroom, 128 Northeast Russell St. Portland.
British funk foursome brings their retro/timeless brew of organ-guitar led instrumental funk in the tradition of the funky jazz/soul of old school groups like the MGs and the Meters and even Jimmy Smith’s jazz organ trios, and newer bands like Medeski Martin & Wood and Galactic.

“Encore: The Music of Ola Gjeilo”
October 9
Choral Arts Ensemble, Kaul Auditorium, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of this choral concert featuring one of today’s most popular choral composers, Norwegian American Ola Gjeilo. Bruce Browne reviewed last year’s CAE Gjeilo concert for ArtsWatch.

Flugelhornist Thomas Barber joins Choral Arts Ensemble in music of Ola Gjeilo. Photo: David Hughes.

Flugelhornist Thomas Barber joins Choral Arts Ensemble in music of Ola Gjeilo. Photo: David Hughes.

Somi
October 9
Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St. Portland.
Read my Willamette Week preview of one of today’s most original and appealing jazz singers, whose opening act performance at this year’s Portland Jazz Festival won high praise from ArtsWatch’s Angela Allen.

The Julians
October 9
Jade Lounge, 2342 SE Ankeny St, Portland.
The top notch Portland classical singers branch out with covers of Björk, Alicia Keys, Rautavaara, Tom Waits, Hozier, The Shirelles, and more.

Joe Manis Trio
October 9
Sam Bond’s Garage, 407 Blair Boulevard, Eugene.
Read my Eugene Weekly preview of the CD release concert by the terrific Oregon tenor saxman that also features the powerful Portland jazz pianist George Colligan.

Dialectical Imagination; Douglas Detrick and Juniana Lanning
October 9
Michelle’s Pianos, 600 SE Stark St, Portland.
Portland musicians Detrick (cornet, electronics) and Lanning (electronics), who’ll improvise music inspired by a voicemail left by KBOO FM announcer Daniel Flessas’s father before dementia left him unable to communicate, open for the Oakland-based free improv piano and drum duo.

Stephen Price and Janet Coleman
October 10
The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave. Portland.
A long and admirable tradition ends with the final installment of long time Oregon Symphony violist Price’s final free annual recital (concluding 44 years of concert performances) that always featured new music by Oregon composers. Along with the excellent pianist Coleman, he’ll be joined by Portland Baroque Orchestra violent Adam Lamotte (in a trio version of Mozart’s great Sinfonia Concertante with strings) and Bach’s most famous organ Toccata and Fugue played by Michael Barnes, along with a surprise beginning by John Stafford Smith and a reprise of the 2010 Divertimento written for the series by Portland’s Jon Newton.

Ganesh-Kumaresh Violin Duo
October 10
First Baptist Church, 909 SW 11th Avenue, Portland.
The week’s second Kalakendra concert brings a pair of accomplished Indian fiddlers accompanied by percussionists  Shankar Narayanan on mridangam and Trichy Krishnaswamy on ghatam.

Streetcar Mobile Music Fest
October 10
Various streetcars, Portland.
The annual music on rails event returns with Classical Revolution PDX, Portland Opera, and various pop, rock, and world music ensembles performing on the streetcar.

The Ensemble
October 10, Central Lutheran Church, 1857 Potter Street, Eugene.
October 11, Reed College Chapel, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Portland.
Read my Eugene Weekly preview of the excellent vocal ensemble’s English Renaissance music performances.

Matthew Halls leads the Oregon Symphony this weekend.

Matthew Halls leads the Oregon Symphony this weekend.

Oregon Symphony
October 10 and 12, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland.
Guest conductor Matthew Halls takes a break from his Oregon Bach Festival duties to lead the orchestra in J.S. Bach’s magnificent Ricercare from his Musical Offering (arranged for modern orchestra by Anton Webern in 1935) plus a dusky concerto inspired by it (the distinguished Russian composer Sophia Gubaidulina’s 1980 Offertorium, starring Vadim Gluzman, and Beethoven’s breakthrough Symphony No. 3, which he wanted played toward the beginning of any concert performance rather than (as usual in today’s formulaic orchestra concerts) at the end, as listed in the OSO program. Wonder what Halls, who grew up in the historical performance practice movement, will decide?

Moh Alileche
October 10
Tigard Library, 13125 SW Hall Blvd. Tigard.
Accompanied by a drummer and flutist, the Algerian born Portland musician will play traditional music on the mondol, a steel-stringed instrument resembling a mandolin.

“Don Giovanni”
Cascadia Concert Opera, North Coast Chorale.
October 11, First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street, Eugene.
October 14, The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave. Portland.
CCO’s latest intimate opera production: a concert version of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” with piano accompaniment, performed entirely in English and featuring veteran Oregon musicians Brennen Guillory, Deac Guidi, William Hulings, Sarah Benzinger and more.

Wayne Shorter Quartet
October 13
Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St. Portland.
From his days fronting Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, through his transformative tenure in Miles Davis’ second great quintet in the 1960s, his triumphant Weather Report work in the 1970s to his more recent work, Shorter has been one of jazz’s greatest composers. Still a terrific saxophonist, the 10-time Grammy winner brings one of jazz’s great performing ensembles (pianist Danilo Perez, drummer Brian Blade, bassist John Patitucci) to town to play music from their latest CD, Without a Net, an apt description of quartet’s daring, unpredictable improvisatory approach.
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