If you survived the floods (of music last weekend and rain thereafter), there’s still a considerable font of music available on Oregon stages this weekend, and you can let ArtsWatch readers know of others in the comments below.
The Dali Quartet perform in Eugene and Portland.
Joe Manis and Siri Vik
November 18, Christo’s, 1108 NE Broadway St. Salem, and November 19, The Shedd, 868 High St. Eugene.
Joined by veteran Oregon jazzers Greg Goebel on piano, Todd Strait on drums, and bassist Tyler Abbot, the saxophonist and singer — two of Eugene’s brightest music stars — perform jazz chanteuse Abbey Lincoln’s classic 1957 album That’s Him! Along with songs from their other recent cover albums, Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley, the incomparably intoxicating John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, and Coltrane’s gorgeous Ballads.
Dalí Quartet
November 19, The Old Church, 1422 S.W. 11th Ave. Portland and November 22, Beall Concert Hall, Frohnmayer Music Building, University of Oregon, Eugene.
Read my Willamette Week preview of the young Philly-based, Venezuela born string quartet. The Portland program, sponsored by Friends of Chamber Music, consists of 20th century music by Latin American composers except for one piece by Spaniard Joaquin Turina, while the Eugene show, which opens this year’s ChamberMusic@Beall series, sacrifices some Latin sounds on the altar of a Brahms quartet.
“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”
Opera Theater Oregon, November 20, Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St, Portland.
Not an opera performance, but rather a 7 pm screening of the recent digital restoration of the great Jacques Demy’s classic 1964 movie musical, with memorable score by Michel Legrand and breakthrough performance by Catherine Denueve, preceded by a 6 pm live cabaret performances of 1960s French and Italian pop hits, all part of a fundraiser and 10th anniversary celebration for the rebooted OTO, one of the most fun and creative pillars of Portland’s fertile indie classical scene.
Oregon Guitar Quartet
November 20
Lincoln Recital hall, Portland State University.
The group’s new program pairs arrangements of classical faves (Rachmaninoff, Scarlatti, Shostakovich, Mozart) with jazz (Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Luis Bonfa) and traditional tunes.
Portland Baroque Orchestra
November 20–21, First Baptist Church, and November 22, Kaul Auditorium, Reed College, Portland.
Concertmaster Carla Moore leads the band in an string-centric extravaganza featuring one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti and must by a swath of Italian composers from Gabrieli and Cavalli to Vivaldi and Locatelli. Saturday’s afternoon Young People’s Concert runs only an hour.
Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra
November 20, First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson St. Portland, and November 22, Reynolds High School, 1698 SW Cherry Park Rd, Troutdale.
Read my Willamette Week preview of that rarest of apparitions: an Oregon orchestra playing music by an Oregon composer, in this case, Tomáš Svoboda’s 2013 Clarinet Concerto featuring soloist Michael Anderson.
Satori Men’s Chorus
November 21
Central Lutheran Church, 1820 NE 21st Ave. Portland.
Accompanied by Ben Milstein, the Portland choir sings music and/or lyrics by Kalidasa’s Sanskrit poem “Look to This Day For it Is Life,” by composers as diverse as Dvorak, Peter Yarrow, Portland Gay Men’s Chorus’s Robert Seeley & Robert Espindola, and even includes Jamaican and Ukrainian numbers.
Debojyoti Bose
November 21
The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Avenue, Portland.
Accompanied by tablawallah Abhijit Banerjee, the Kolkata-based sarod master and film composer plays Indian classical music.
Susan Chan
November 21
Portland Piano Company, 711 SW 14th Ave. Portland.
In this free afternoon recital, the PSU prof and pianist performs music from her new CD of music by Chinese and Chinese American composers (including Zhou Long, Tan Dun, and Chen Yi), Echoes of China.
Marylhurst Choirs
November 21
St. Anne’s Chapel, Marylhurst University, Portland.
The school chamber choir sings the world premiere of a work it commissioned, Philadelphia composer John Conahan’s Of Gods and of Angels, plus American composer Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine and Mozart’s magnificent Requiem.
John Schott
November 21, Revival Drum Shop, Portland, and November 22, Sam Bond’s Garage, Eugene.
The Bay Area guitarist and onetime member of funk jazzers T.J. Kirk who’s also played with John Zorn, Tom Waits and other edgy musicians) brings his Actual Trio to Oregon to play lithe chamber jazz.
Amelia Trio
November 22
Church of the Good Samaritan, 333 N.W. 35th Street, Corvallis.
The piano-violin-cello threesome play contemporary Russian composer Lera Auerbach’s evocative second piano trio, Triptych (which like the titular painting, calls its movements “panels”), Dvorak’s famous “Dumky” trio, and Debussy’s wondrous G major piano trio.
Northwest Art Song
November 22
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Kempton Hall, 147 NW 19th Ave. Portland.
The new group (soprano Arwen Myers, mezzo-soprano Laura Beckel Thereon, both members of The Ensemble who’ve sung with most of Portland’s top choirs, plus pianist Susan McDaniel) devoted to vocal chamber music performs music by Rossini, Handel, Faure, J.S. Bach, Leonard Bernstein, Mendelssohn and Monteverdi in its debut concert.
The Rose Ensemble
November 22
Read my Willamette Week preview of the Portland debut of this Twin Cities-based vocal and instrumental consort performing its tribute to St. Francis of Assisi.
Festival Chorale Oregon
November 22
Elsinore Theatre, 170 High Street SE, Salem.
The 100-member chorus joins an orchestra for Haydn’s monumental oratorio, The Creation.
Oregon Symphony
November 22–23
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland.
Venerable guest conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewskiest known here for his long reign at what’s now the Minnesota Orchestra, earlier led the Warsaw Symphony just after it premiered the great Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s big 20th century masterpiece, Concerto for Orchestra, which the OSO will perform along with Brahms’s third symphony and Mozart’s eloquent final piano concerto, starring young Italian pianist Francisco Piemontesi.
Catherine Feeny and Chris Johnedis
The singer-songwriters (who also play percussion, guitar and ukulele) are joined by a Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble wind quintet (Douglas Detrick on trumpet, Lars Campbell on trombone, Lee Etlderton on soprano saxophone, Mary-Sue Tobin on tenor sax, and Pete Petersen on baritone sax) in arrangements by Portland indie jazzers and Blue Cranes Joe Cunningham and Reed Wallsmith, plus composer-players Barra Brown, Kela Parker, Noah Bernstein, and Douglas Detrick. The ever enjoyable Blue Cranes open.
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