Author: Brett Campbell

Groovy, Jazzy October

ArtsMusic

 Best known for his Cherry Blossom Musical Arts productions with partner and singer Nancy Wood, Eugene composer Paul Safar was named 2013 Oregon Composer of the Year by the Oregon Music Teachers Association (OMTA) and this summer completed a prestigious composition residency in Alaska. Several of Safar’s recent classically inspired works draw on themes and imagery from nature, including the title track of his alluring new CD, The Warbler Sings, which he releases in concert Saturday, Oct. 8, at The Jazz Station. Continue reading →

Do the Twist

The Shedd’s production of Broadway musical Oliver! has us asking for more

Music
Dina Gilbert

Before Elton John, Duncan Sheik and Green Day created original stage scores, before all those jukebox musicals featuring songs by Abba, Four Seasons, Carole King and more, even before Rent, Grease, Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, there was Lionel Bart — a pop songwriter who never learned to read or write music and yet composed some of Britain’s biggest pop hits of the 1950s for Cliff Richard and other stars. Continue reading →

Accentuate the Positive

The Shedd's OFAM concludes with hits from the home front

Music
Siri Vik

When the United States went to war in 1941, music was in the arsenal. After Japan’s catastrophic sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the country needed cheering up and troops needed cheering on. The nation’s pop culture institutions were enlisted, going on tours and producing “V-discs” (records) and shortwave broadcasts for deployed soldiers and music about coming home and accentuating the positive for Americans.  Continue reading →

Summer Sizzle

Here’s some musical hair of the dog for that Bach Festival hangover

Music
Lakou Mizik

Let’s assume you love classical music and you’re having a hangover now that the Bach Festival is over and the symphony and other classical seasons don’t get going for some weeks. Let us further assume that you are not among the fortunate many who found out about the Eugene Symphony’s eighth annual Symphony in the Park concert at Cuthbert Amphitheater on Saturday, July 16, before all the free tickets were snapped up by the savvy. Continue reading →

Bach In the Thick of It

James MacMillan’s big choral orchestral work premiere

Music
Monica Huggett

When the Oregon Bach Festival commissioned what turned out to be his European Requiem back in 2012, James MacMillan couldn’t have known how prophetic that title might have turned out to be. The 57-year-old Scottish composer’s big choral orchestral work premieres July 2 at the Hult Center — just more than a week after his compatriots voted to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union, a move that might in turn provoke MacMillan’s homeland to seek independence from the U.K. Continue reading →

Bach the House

Some highlights from the musical cornucopia that is the Oregon Bach Festival

Performing Arts
Rachel Podger

This summer, Oregon Bach Festival’s theme could have been “Generations.” The fest features a father-and-son team — Jeffrey and Gabriel Kahane; leaders of two generations of historically informed Baroque violin — Monica Huggett and Rachel Podger; old and new music — from Baroque and early Romantic masters to contemporary composers; veteran visitors conductor Anton Armstrong, pianist Robert Levin and organist Paul Jacobs; as well as today’s rising stars — the terrific singer Nicholas Phan and Artistic Director Matthew Halls; and tomorrow’s musical leaders — Youth Choral Academy, Berwick Acade Continue reading →

Gabriel’s Guide to the Galaxy

Composer and singer Gabriel Kahane presents the Oregon premiere of 'Gabriel’s Guide to the 48 States' at OBF

Performing Arts
Gabriel Kahane

Ever since his sly 2007 breakthrough — the witty Craigslistlieder — songwriter-guitarist-pianist-composer Gabriel Kahane has rightly resisted the classical label originally affixed because of his music’s relatively sophisticated arrangements and instrumentation and the fact that his dad, Jeffrey (with whom he’ll share the stage at the Oregon Bach Festival), is a renowned classical pianist and conductor. Continue reading →

Punching Through Genres

Catching up with mando player and new Oregon resident Chris Thile of The Punch Brothers on the eve of Oregon Bach Festival

Performing Arts
Chris Thile

Mandolinist whiz Chris Thile did not begin his career with an innate love of classical music. “Until I was 15 or 16, I couldn’t have cared less about classical music,” Thile tells EW. “I grew up playing fiddle tunes where the whole point is getting people’s bodies to move, and I thought classical music was completely divorced from the body.” Although he had family members who played classical music, Thile had already won the national mandolin championship at age 12. Continue reading →