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There are many reasons to read Eugene author Melissa Hart’s new young adult fiction book, Avenging the Owl, but the multiple references to Eugene life and Oregon culture are chief among them for local readers. Tsunami Books will host a book launch for Hart on April 17, with readings from the winners of her middle-school nature essay contest. Continue reading
It is a peculiarity of art that its failures are often more moving, more profoundly beautiful, than its successes, especially when the artist failing is a great one. Perfection has a monolithic aspect, airtight and intimidating; it can leave us cold. Better, sometimes, the flaw, the frayed end, which reveals the Icarus burn of lofty ambitions. Humanity, you might say, is never more humane than when it strives and crashes. Continue reading
He descended on the Carter era of gas lines and bloody carpets and post-love funk like some infernal geek bastard child of Buddy Holly and Johnny Lydon, spitting out lyrical venom over gorgeous hooks and bellicose riffs that plumbed the deepest, darkest wells of pop music — billboard fuzz attacking itself with newborn impunity — all of it churned out with a churlish amphetamine sneer that belied his antediluvian genius for melodic universalism within the three-minute cliché of radio-radio rock. Continue reading
Eugene has long been one of the beacons of so-called early music, which includes basically anything composed (in Europe) before J.S. Bach died and Mozart was born in the mid-18th century. The Oregon Bach Festival has been the big kahuna, but the city boasts an indie early music scene consisting of historically informed performance practice musicians in outfits like the Oregon Bach Collegium, Vox Resonat and the University of Oregon’s splendid early music program. Continue reading
In music venue news, The Barn Light East (845 East 8th Ave.) has announced they will be hosting live music. Barn Light co-owner Thomas Pettus-Czar tells KVAL-TV: “As opposed to other environments in which [music is] sort of in the background, this is an opportunity where folks can grab a beverage, sit down and really pay attention to the artists.” Look for show announcements soon. Continue reading
The (sub)Urban Projections Digital Art & Media Festival returns April 21 with a two-night multi-sensory, multi-discipline experience. Sponsored by the city of Eugene in partnership with Harmonic Laboratory, the festival — now celebrating its fifth year — seeks to “champion emerging artists, cultivate community and generate vibrancy in downtown Eugene.” Continue reading
It’s not necessarily downbeat to claim that a given theatrical production is completely carried by one performance in particular — to lavish praise on an actor who puts the play on her back and carts it expertly and, of equal importance, joyously from her first appearance on stage to the proverbial drop of the velvet curtain. This is especially true in community theater, a distinctly democratic institution where the egalitarian instinct gives a nudge to tender swaths of talent that blend in a stew of ability, some of it realized but not always. Continue reading
There’s no question that artist and filmmaking couple Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst live and breathe their art, describing themselves as “extreme collaborators.” Their relationship will be on view in Relationship, a voyeuristic photo series opening April 20 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The collection of 26 photographs, which originally were not intended for public viewing, documents five years of their lives together (2008-2013), as Drucker transitioned from male to female and Ernst transitioned from female to male. Continue reading
Eugene audiences were treated to two world premieres yesterday, as the Eugene Ballet Company presented Suzanne Haag’s Look and Toni Pimble’s The Great Gatsby. Continue reading
The capacity crowd at Beall Hall Friday night was only satisfied after not one, but two standing ovations for Joan Szymko’s new work “Shadow & Light”, performed beautifully by the Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble, the Eugene Concert Orchestra and soloists Marietta Simpson, Sarah Joanne Davis and Brendan Tuohy, under the direction of artistic director and conductor Diane Retallack. Continue reading