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)
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)
Composers and musicians from opposite ends of the Willamette will celebrate new connections between two river communities when the Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble (ECCE) and the Contemporary Portland Orchestra Project (CPOP) join forces for a March Music Moderne concert on March 8 at Portland’s AudioCinema studios.
—Gary Ferrington, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
Portland’s most valuable musical rite of spring could become as much of a draw for contemporary music fans as the city’s more pop-oriented festivals.
—Brett Campbell, Oregon ArtsWatch/TravelPortland (read the full article)
With minimal resources and maximal willpower, ingenuity and single-minded drive, this composer/impresario [Bob Priest] has herded a bunch of cats (me included) into the successful makings of this niche festival that has become – almost without him intending it –a de facto contemporary and 20th century Portland near-icon.
—Maria Choban, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
It would be hard to imagine a more seductive presentation. Despite their rather severe appearance, the Jerusalem [Quartet] projected a warm and lyrical sound, and their technique and ensemble were stellar.
—Jeff Winslow, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
Contemporary Portland Orchestra Project (CPOP) is presenting “When Strange Birds Passing Meet: Memory and Mimesis in the Soundscape” on Friday, March 22, at 11:00pm at Portland’s Bamboo Grove, in the penultimate performance of March Music Moderne 2013.
CPOP is a bold marriage between classical instrumentation and the electronic sounds of our current sound world. Inspired by BMOP (Boston Modern Orchestra Project), co-artistic directors Lisa Lipton and Justin Ralls pair contemporary composers with skilled chamber musicians.
—Brett Campbell, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
The tide of 20th century and contemporary music that commenced last month with the University of Oregon’s Music Today Festival and peaked with Portland’s March Music Moderne finally begins to recede this weekend as MMM concludes with concerts by Third Angle (its second and most admirable New Voices in Music project, which includes works by rising young composers from Oregon and beyond) on Thursday at Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall, Contemporary Portland Orchestra Project late Friday, and culminating in Northwest New Music’s closing Saturday night concert at Portland’s Community Music Center, with special guests City of Tomorrow woodwind quartet, two of whose members live in Portland.
—Brett Campbell, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
We started out with contemporary music, and of course it IS March, so that means March Music Moderne continues in Portland.
—Brett Campbell, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
Twice in the past decade, including this week, Portland has been lucky to hear a complete cycle of Shostakovich’s 15 quartets, many containing the kind of personal music the Soviet authorities wouldn’t countenance in his big orchestral works.
Brett Campbell, Oregon ArtsWatch (read the full article)
