Brett Campbell

Brett Campbell is a frequent contributor to The Oregonian, San Francisco Classical Voice, Oregon Quarterly, and Oregon Humanities. He has been classical music editor at Willamette Week, music columnist for Eugene Weekly, and West Coast performing arts contributing writer for the Wall Street Journal, and has also written for Portland Monthly, West: The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Salon, Musical America and many other publications. He is a former editor of Oregon Quarterly and The Texas Observer, a recipient of arts journalism fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (Columbia University), the Getty/Annenberg Foundation (University of Southern California) and the Eugene O’Neill Center (Connecticut). He is co-author of the biography Lou Harrison: American Musical Maverick (Indiana University Press, 2017) and several plays, and has taught news and feature writing, editing and magazine publishing at the University of Oregon School of Journalism & Communication and Portland State University.

Music news & notes: March 2025

Happenings in Oregon classical music, including news about a nationally acclaimed Oregon radio station, a rising young Oregon musician, a new orchestra leader in Eugene, the impending end of a couple of beloved musical traditions, and more.

Unexpected connections, onstage and off

Bringing authenticity to neurodiversity: PHAME Academy and Artists Rep collaborate on Diana Burbano’s "Sapience," a play that deals in part with being on the spectrum.

Saxophones for Peace: Quadraphonnes & friends play Moondog

Portland’s supreme saxophone quartet and guest musicians perform the singular, strangely seductive sounds of one of America’s great musical eccentrics

Shakespeare, minimalist and feminist

Bag&Baggage Productions’ snappy "Beginnings & Endings" presents a stripped-down "Richard III" and a modern look at the Bard’s women.

Celebrating diversity in Hillsboro

In a time when cultural pluralism is under attack, groups in Washington County team up for an afternoon of connection and celebration through poetry, dance, music and food.

All Classical Radio’s Media Arts Center: Portland’s newest cultural hub

The venerable broadcaster’s move to new studios in downtown's KOIN Tower opens space for an energetic and expanded mission beyond the radio dial.

‘Hard Boiled Eggnog’: Who offed Santa?

Noel meets Noir in Bag & Baggage’s new family friendly holiday play.

TOC Portland: A new song for an old institution

The venue formerly known as The Old Church Concert Hall reimagines and expands its mission to provide greater support to its home community.

Words into Music part 2: Poetic Inspirations

Cascadia Composers teams up with a quartet of Oregon Poets Laureate in a concert of Northwest-spawned sounds and words

Portland Taiko at 30: Continuity and Evolution

The Japanese American percussion ensemble celebrates its 30th anniversary by looking back to its origins while confronting today’s challenges and changes

Words into Music part 1: Transforming Stories into Sounds

Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble and Literary Arts team up in a concert of original jazz inspired by Oregon books

Making others’ dreams come true: Remembering John T. Montague

The stalwart patron of Portland contemporary classical music leaves a lasting — and surprising — legacy, including a video exhibition this month at Nine Gallery.

Music news & notes: Celebrating Gary Ferrington, welcoming new resident artists, more classical music news

All Classical Radio and Portland Opera name new resident artists, PSU's Coty Raven Morris is a Grammy nominee again, Seattle Symphony names a new music director, and more.

Portland Opera To Go’s ‘Shizue’ brings a stirring Oregon story to stages and schools around Oregon

Dmae Lo Roberts and Kenji Oh’s new youth chamber opera is the latest in Portland Opera’s series devoted to historical leaders from diverse Oregon communities.

Harrison Butler leads HART Theatre back from the brink – and into the future

The Hillsboro theater’s dynamic artistic director brings an inclusive vision that embraces new work, community engagement, educational initiatives — and maybe a new campus.

Hillsboro’s Main Street: Awash in art and community

The city’s downtown uses arts to boost economy and livability – but work remains to be done, arts advocates say.

A new stage for telling Native stories

Director Jeanette Harrison’s new Native Theater Project, in an innovative partnership with Hillsboro’s Bag & Baggage Productions, debuts with Blossom Johnson’s "Diné Nishłį (I Am A Sacred Being) or, A Boarding School Play."

PJCE Records spreads the sound of Northwest jazz

The artist-run, Portland-based record label gives Oregon musicians the vehicle to share their diverse sounds worldwide.

Summer Music News: Transitions, Disputations, Congratulations

Recent reports about opera, classical radio, choral achievements, young artists on the rise, and other Oregon arts news.

Remembering Gary Ferrington

The frequent ArtsWatch contributor, who has died at 83, was also a quiet, generous advocate for Oregon arts and a role model for continuing creativity to the very end.

Transformative redemption: Orpheus PDX’s pair of doomed love operas

The Portland opera company’s annual pair of productions–David Hertzberg’s “The Rose Elf” and Handel’s “Acis, Galatea, & Polyphemus”—pit natural love against human villainy.

New plays from an old place: Northwest Theatre Workshop’s ‘Fragments’

A rural Oregon grocery store-cum-creative hub provides a source of freshly devised plays — and a showcase for a new way of creating them

The Sun Rises Over Everyone: El Sol Festival shines a light on Hillsboro’s cultural diversity

A summer arts celebration reflects the inclusive approach of its home, M&M Marketplace, and provides a welcoming environment for the city’s increasingly diverse communities.

John Luther Adams: Become Nature

Chamber Music Northwest and the Oregon Bach Festival present the world premiere of a new work for percussion ensemble by one of the most lauded living American composers

Light Opera of Portland’s ‘Iolanthe’ throws Gilbert & Sullivan for a LOoP

The company brings its comic operettas to downtown Portland and Hillsboro.

Theatre 33’s Intoxicating Vision  

As it begins its second decade, the Salem company based at Willamette University is creating new opportunities for Oregon dramatists

Hillsboro Pride Party: A rainbow rises

During Pride Month, Oregon's fifth largest city celebrates openness and diversity amid recognition that the quest to overcome fear and repression is far from over.

Inaugural Hillsboro Film Festival creates a new hub for West Side cinema

The two-day event at The Vault drew entries from around the globe and raised funds for host Bag&Baggage Productions.

The Fall of Hillsboro’s Sequoia Gallery + Studios 

The artist-operated downtown institution’s closure after 16 years deprives Oregon of an important visual arts hub. 

Seeking Transparency and Accountability at the Oregon Bach Festival

After hiring a musician accused of sexual misdeeds, then reversing course, one of Oregon’s most prominent classical music institutions faces lingering questions.