Closing out the festival, the Free Marz String Trio presents a program dubbed “The Marzian Chronicles.” Details are scarce, but the names of everyone from J.S. Bach to Ennio Morricone are given alongside, of course, Ray Bradbury. The Trio is somewhat known for its untraditional performances—they can involve elements of dance and audience participation, and nontraditional “classical” pieces by, for example, Jimi Hendrix and John Cage.
—Portland Monthly Magazine (read the full article)
The best I and my colleagues Mitchell Falconer, The Mousai and Storm Session (named after his piece in his honor) can do is show the people of his hometown of four decades what they’ve been missing, and show today’s musicians why they might want to play it, too.
—Maria Choban, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
In fact, Choban transcribed the aptly titled “Storm Session” from Svoboda’s original for electric guitar and bass, and the other rhythmically charged acoustic pieces on this hour-long, no-intermission 75th-birthday tribute to the dean of Portland composers crackle with rock’n’roll electricity.
Brett Campbell, Willamette Week (read the full article)
[MODERNE CLASSICAL] These two free March Music Moderne-ending concerts amount to a double bill. […] As MMM proves every year, musical modernism can be fun.
—Brett Campbell, Willamette Week (read the full article)
[WEIRD PIANOS] Keyboards take center stage in this concert of music by Portland composers Jennifer Wright, including her dazzling “Looper” for eight hands; Art Resnick, best-known as a jazzer, but who also composes in classical styles; and Ted Clifford, featuring prepared and unprepared pianos, pianos tuned a quarter-note apart, toy pianos, electric piano and even a “skeleton piano.”
Brett Campbell, Willamette Week (read the full article)
This is the third part of a discussion with impresario and composer Bob Priest about March Music Moderne IV.
So what is coming up for the festival this Friday?
—James Bash, Northwest Reverb (read the full article)
And who better than Maria Choban to rouse us from our winter doldrums? Choban is the Joan Jett of Portland’s classical music scene: aggressive, passionate, uncompromising.
—David Stabler, The Oregonian (read the full article)
Breaking News: Cinema 21’s Tom Ranieri has declared Shutter Island a free screening. Please be sure to join us at Cinema 21 on Friday, March 14, at 11 PM.
Chief provocateur Bob Priest deserves enormous credit for creating a space for today’s music — so criminally ignored by most of our classical music institutions most of the time — that he and others have stuffed with a wide range of performances in a startling variety of venues.
—Brett Campbell, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
This event is one of those reasons that while we might all get self-satirical about living in Portland, it really is a place where creativity bleeds out of the walls. Could there be a more surreal or appropriate blending of media than setting a Butoh dance performance to Lou Reed’s finest and most difficult recorded work?
—Ricardo Wang, KPSU (read the full article)
