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On May 14, just days after The Bad Plus shook The Shedd, another youngish ensemble that’s reinventing jazz for a new era, Refuge Trio, plays the University of Oregon’s Beall Concert Hall — where the trio’s pianist, former UO piano prof Gary Versace, once dazzled Eugeneans a decade ago. Continue reading
Jazz may be America’s greatest gift to music, but since its late ’50s heyday, the art form has too often become marginalized by the same process familiar to classical music fans: devolving into either endless recycling of the same old standards (to appeal to a rigidly conservative audience that basically wants to hear its record collections played live) or an extreme avant-garde content to play shrieky, “out” sounds for a tiny in-group audience. Neither is a recipe for building new audiences or sustainable artistic growth. Continue reading
No, we’re not talking about Ray Charles, the Allman Brothers, OutKast, R.E.M. or other musicians from the Southeastern US, but rather Zedashe, an ensemble from the former Soviet republic, which performs at the UO’s Beall Hall April 19. The group of singers and instrumentalists (using bagpipes, accordion, percussion and more) has spent years finding and reviving music that was suppressed or otherwise gone with the wind during the decades of Soviet domination. Continue reading
Musical institutions too often destroy the very music they prize by refusing to look forward, relying instead on constant rehashing of the greatest hits of earlier decades and centuries. This month brings to town some progressive musicians who are keeping their traditions alive and growing. For example, Brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen are proving that classical music is no musty museum but rather a living tradition. Continue reading
A few years ago, the Eugene Opera seemed moribund — a “dead man walking,” to use the phrase applied in prison to an inmate condemned to death. But in the past couple of years, it’s gotten a reprieve — or rather engineered a resurrection. Continue reading
While backward-gazing classical music institutions slip further and further into cultural irrelevance — see, for example, the Eugene Symphony’s season schedule, containing a total of two works by living composers — those who cherish the future of classical music can look to fountains of innovation such as the University of Oregon. Continue reading
Classical music is often rightly accused of ignoring the here and now. Fortunately, many younger composers are using classical and postclassical forms to help us understand the sometimes-unpleasant realities of the world we live in. UO grad student and award-winning composer Ethan Gans-Morse directs the Ambrosia Ensemble, which will perform the world premiere of his new opera-oratorio, The Canticle of the Black Madonna, at the University of Oregon’s Beall Concert Hall in a free performance Feb. 16. Continue reading
Eugene has incubated more than its share of strong performers who either studied at the UO (the band Oregon, jazz singer Nancy King, Portland Cello Project founder Douglas Jenkins) or won early acclaim here (Robert Cray, Curtis Salgado) and moved on to greener pastures. This month brings a few once familiar faces back. Continue reading
In the past few years, Eugene’s Baroque music scene has blossomed beyond the annual Oregon Bach Festival. This month boasts a trifecta of early music concerts performed as closely to the styles, tunings and instrumentation of what the original composers intended. Continue reading
When Jenny Scheinman draws her bow across her fiddle strings Friday, Jan. 4, she’ll be the least famous member of the trio she’s leading at The Shedd. The other two musicians have graced that stage often as composers/bandleaders themselves. Seattle-based guitar master Bill Frisell remains one of the world’s most venturesome yet listener-friendly musicians, while Louisiana native Brian Blade is one of jazz’s most accomplished and inventive drummers. Continue reading