Eugene Weekly

The Jan. 16 Eugene Symphony concert at the Hult Center opens with some of the 20th century’s most powerfully dramatic music: the “Four Sea Interludes” from Benjamin Britten’s mighty opera Peter Grimes. This performance of one of the greatest English composers’ most popular concert works misses by just a few days cashing in on Britten’s centenary celebrations, but we don’t need no stinkin’ birthday excuse to enjoy his music. Continue reading →

Classical music people are always fretting about how to keep the genre from declining along with its aging audience by getting hip to the 21st century. That means, at a minimum, doing what popular music, dance and theater have always done, and what classical musicians themselves did until the last few generations: perform the music of their own time, i.e., now. But sometimes it also means rethinking the presentation to suit today’s more visually oriented culture. A cool concert at the UO’s Beall Concert Hall Friday, Jan. 10, does both. Continue reading →

Baroque music and candlelight make a fine combination. On Thursday (12/20) and Friday (12/21), the Oregon Mozart Players’ annual Candlelight Baroque concert returns to the ideally intimate setting of First Christian Church. This year’s program features some of the finest music of the Baroque era: J.S. Bach’s ever-popular Cantata No. Continue reading →

“It’s only a model,” Terry Gilliam’s Patsy says, sotte voce, with a shrug of Camelot in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Continue reading →

On Nov. 23, the Eugene Symphony transforms an opera into a concert and a ballet into a play. The inventive show opens with Sergei Prokofiev’s intensely dramatic 1936 ballet score, Romeo and Juliet — but instead of dancers, the Silva Hall stage will boast a trio of actors from Ashland’s world-renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival who will perform scenes from Shakespeare’s play, sometimes interpolated, sometimes in conjunction with the music. Continue reading →

From downtown New York avant jazzer in the ’80s through more straight-ahead jazz after moving to Seattle to his abstract string quartet (originally part of a multimedia project) to his more recent country-, folk-, and rock-tinged work, protean guitar master Bill Frisell manages to explore new territory while maintaining an instantly recognizable artistic voice throughout his many musical meanderings. Fortunately, The Shedd has made it easy to trace Frisell’s always intriguing musical journeys by bringing him here often, and Friday Nov. Continue reading →

Along with creating lots of work for area dentists, Halloween heralds a couple of happier traditions. Mood Area 52’s annual live, original, tango-tinted score (for electric guitar, cello, accordion, bass, horns, toy piano and plentiful percussion) for F.W. Murnau’s classic vampire flick Nosferatu is always a hoot, and this year, the Oct. 31 show at the Bijou Theater is augmented by the band’s bonus original string band soundtrack to Buster Keaton’s 1921 short film The Boat. Sunday afternoon’s (Oct. Continue reading →