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Weekend MusicWatch

By Brett Campbell
November 25, 2015
Music

For some reason, music appears to take a back seat to other activities this weekend, so this week’s previews will be short and as sweet as yam pudding, with no turkeys in the flock. Please let our readers know about other shows worth gobbling up in the comments section below. And let’s look forward to a major event next Wednesday through Friday: the premiere of a new, made-in-Portland chamber opera, which we’ll tell you more about soon.

Also, let’s take this little break from music to express gratitude for the wonderful music available in Oregon throughout the year. Thanks to those musicians and presenters who bring it to us, and to ArtsWatch readers, contributors, and supporters who make what we do possible.

Portland Ballet and PSU Orchestra
November 27-30
Lincoln Performance Hall (Room 175), 1620 SW Park Ave. Portland State University.
This fun, family friendly live dance and music show is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition, and is listed here because it includes live PSU Orchestra musicians, conducted by Ken Selden, playing Stravinsky’s The Firebird, along with some Mozart.

Ramana Vieira and Fado Ensemble
November 27, Jazz Station, 124 W. Broadway, Eugene, and November 29, Vie de Boheme, 1530 SE 7th Ave. Portland.
On her new album, Luso Sol, the Bay Area-based singer (an American of Portuguese extraction), pays tribute to Amalia Rodrigues, the late queen of fado (the melancholy, two- century old Portuguese balladry analogous to American blues), and also embraces modern influences, original compositions, English as well as Portuguese lyrics, and even non traditional instruments like cello, bass, drums and accordion.

Oregon Symphony, Pacific Youth Choir
November 28-29
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, Portland.
Carols and other familiar tunes will ring out along with music from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden and Chanukah tunes in this family friendly concert.

Friends of Chamber Music brings back to Portland the Calder Quartet, which performed in outreach programs like this one during their last FOCM appearance. Photo: courtesy of Friends of Chamber Music.

Friends of Chamber Music brings back to Portland the Calder Quartet, which performed in outreach programs like this one during their last FOCM appearance. Photo: courtesy of Friends of Chamber Music.

Calder Quartet
November 30 & December 1
Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave. Portland State University.
Read my Willamette Week preview of the Los Angeles-based quartet’s two shows, which feature music by two of their hometown composers, Thomas Ades and Andrew Norman. “What they do is really special in the nature of musical life here in LA,” part-time Angelo Ades told me in an interview last year. “When they do sit down and play whatever it is, they really play the socks off it. I love the way they play my music — it seems to come really naturally.”


Alexandre Dossin
November 30
Beall Concert Hall, Frohnmayer Music Building, University of Oregon.
The UO faculty pianist joins clarinetist Michael Anderson and cellist Steven Pologe in an all-Brahms program: Clarinet Sonata No. 2, Cello Sonata No. 1, and Clarinet Trio Op. 114.

Oregon Trail Trio
December 1
Artists Repertory Theatre, Morrison Stage, 1515 SW Morrison St., Portland.
The inaugural concert in the ever-hopping ArtsHub’s new music series (featuring performances related to the plays running concurrently on ART stages) stars Oregon Renaissance Band/Ensemble De Organographia leaders Phil and Gayle Neuman and Mick Doherty, who’s worked for years with the Neumans in Portland’s beloved Trail Band. They’ll play traditional Appalachian dance tunes and ballads on violin, guitar, hammered dulcimer, banjo, flageolets, walking stick recorder and more.

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