Raise the roof, classical music nerds fans of modern classical music! Even if you’ve never heard of her – and maybe especially if you haven’t – contemporary classical music composer Jennifer Higdon rates two hours of your rapt attention and twenty five bucks from your wallet. Why? Because 1) she writes music of extreme neo-romantic […]
Stephen Marc Beaudoin
Posted inArtsy
Go! Hear! Oregon Symphony w/ Joshua Bell, this weekend!
How can you not fall madly in love with floppy-haired hotty violinist Joshua Bell? Just look at him! The sweat on the brow! The ecstatic arch of the neck! The baby face! That mop of dark hair!! [is panting] The miraculous thing about Joshua Bell is that, in all seriousness, he’s a really fine player […]
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Portland Pride Announces (Some) Pride Fest Entertainment
Looks like Portland’s queer pride fest is starting to deliver on their promise of more diversity and “unity” in this year’s festival – at least if the entertainment they just began announcing is any indication. According to Pride Northwest board member Hank Renfrow, the fest has booked up-and-coming hip-hop artist Melange Lavonne as one of […]
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QDoc Fest Announces ’09 Lineup
Just three and a half weeks before it’s slated to open, Portland’s QDoc Festival has finally announced its 2009 lineup. And well, it was worth the wait: this year’s festival looks to be the most wide-ranging and original yet in its three year history. Looking for a documentary chronicling 90’s rock-and-rolling “Cocksucker Club” stars of […]
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Portland Pride Names Parade Marshal and “Spirit” Winner
Portland’s gay pride organization has named its 2009 parade Grand Marshal and “Spirit of Pride” winners, and they’re actually kind of interesting. According to Pride Northwest staff member Zebra (no really, that’s his entire name), the Grand Marshal tiara goes to Kendall Clawson, executive director of the Q Center, Portland’s center for the LGBT community […]
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Kimberly Howard Trades One Tough Arts Post for Another
Portland actress and arts administrator Kimberly Howard (that’s her above, from an ad for Sojourn Theatre’s 2007 “Good,” which we can only pray she’ll parlay into a new statewide cultural philanthropy ad campaign – but we digress…) has resigned her position as managing director of the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center to accept a high-profile post […]
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Vertiginous Thrills and Fonte’s Sensuous Bach Elevate OBT’s Sensational Spring Program
Oregon Ballet Theatre’s spring program, which opened last Friday at the Newmark Theatre, reminded me why they’re one of the region’s most worthy arts organizations. The programming was risky and inventive, the performances were fully committed, and the quality of artistry never fell below a certain high standard of excellence. Occasionally it rose even higher: […]
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Five Questions with… OBT Guest Choreographer Nicolo Fonte
Oregon Ballet Theatre plows ahead with the second-to-last show of its 2008-09 season with “Left Unsaid,” a program of mostly new works opening tonight at the Newmark. One of the dancemakers in town to prep the program is youngish, Brooklyn-born choreographer Nicolo Fonte, returning to work with OBT after the 2008 premiere of his “Bolero” […]
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Zeller Booms in Buffo PSU Student “Falstaff”
College age opera students usually have zero business singing Verdi. The music is too vocally demanding for voices with training wheels; the adult operatic melodrama is pitched somewhere between high drama (Macbeth, Othello) and high camp (a hunchbacked jester named Rigoletto; an Egyptian queen called Aida). But Verdi it was for Portland State University’s annual […]
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Oregon Symphony Scheduled to Hit Carnegie Hall Stage in 2011
Big news from Portland’s own Oregon Symphony – they’ve been picked to make their Carnegie Hall debut at an auspicious new concert series called “Spring for Music,” in May of 2011. The Grey Lady first reported on the hometeam Symphony’s big score, in an article late Wednesday night, and the blogosphere’s been abuzz about what […]
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Tonight – PORTLAND! A Musical @ Buckman Elementary
Move the hell over you horny, hooker-and-gun toting high schoolers showing off in your “student editions” of Rent or Les Miserables! The kiddies over at Buckman Elementary wanna grab you by the throat with something even more shocking, gratuitous and untasteful: a song-and-dance history of our very own Portland, Oregon! Tonight and tonight only (6:30 […]
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Go! See! Greg Patillo’s Beatboxing Flute Magic w/ PROJECT
Badass flute virtuoso Greg Pattillo has unquestionably cornered the classical music market in one special niche – he’s been leading the charge as America’s foremost beatboxing flutist for at least two years now. And for all you music geeks who’ve been counting the days until Pattillo lands in Portland, the wait is over! The Flute […]