Portland Center Stage William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream Portland Oregon
Joe Cantrell
Joe Cantrell
Joe Cantrell
I spent my first 21 years in Tahlequah, Cherokee County, Oklahoma, assuming that except for a few unfortunate spots, ‘everybody’ was part Cherokee, and son of the soil. Volunteered for Vietnam because that’s what we did. After two stints, hoping to gain insight, perhaps do something constructive, I spent the next 16 years as a photojournalist in Asia, living much like the lower income urban peasants and learning a lot. Moved back to the USA in 1986, tried photojournalism and found that the most important subjects were football and basketball, never mind humankind. In 1992, age 46, I became single dad of my 3-year-old daughter and spent the next two decades working regular jobs, at which I was not very good, to keep a roof over our heads, but we made it. She’s retail sales supervisor for Sony, Los Angeles. Wowee! The VA finally acknowledged that the war had affected me badly and gave me a disability pension. I regard that as a stipend for continuing to serve humanity as I can, to use my abilities to facilitate insight and awareness, so I shoot a lot of volunteer stuff for worthy institutions and do artistic/scientific work from our Cherokee perspective well into many nights. Come along!

Up Close with Mozart and Dvořák

Who needs a giant concert hall to make the music zing? Classical Up Close brings great music to a small and happy audience in the cozy confines of a Tigard church.

In Portland, a ‘Messiah’ rings forth

As Portland Baroque Orchestra and the choir Cappella Romana bring Handel’s “Messiah” to vivid life, photographer Joe Cantrell captures the energy and beauty of it all.

Summer in (and out of) the city

Photographer Joe Cantrell roams the plazas and parks and barns of town and country, discovering a feast of music and dance.

In Beaverton, a Little Night Music

… and as a bright and shiny Saturday fades into evening, food and art and crafts and celebrations of the many cultures of Washington County, too.

Ten Tiny Dances, great big steps

On a warm day in Beaverton, all sorts of dancers stepped out to perform on the Tiny Stage – and the effect was big. A photo essay by Joe Cantrell.

Blues Fest Day 4: Light Up the Sky

The 2022 Waterfront Blues Festival goes out with a fireworks bang on the Fourth of July. Photographer Joe Cantrell catches the action on the festival’s fourth and final day.

Blues Fest Day 3: Skeletons on parade

On Sunday at the Waterfront Blues Festival, Mysti Krewe’s bones rattle, Taj Mahal headlines, LaRhonda Steele soars, and much more. Photographer Joe Cantrell captures the spirit of it all.

Blues Fest Day 2: Dance to the Music

As the music plays on the second day of Portland’s big blues bash on the waterfront, the feet start moving to the beat – and photographer Joe Cantrell captures the action.

Back to the blues on the Waterfront

The Waterfront Blues Festival, back full force after Covid slowdowns, brings back the beat through the Fourth of July. Photographer Joe Cantrell snaps highlights from Day One.

A Tempest in the Schnitz

With a storm of Shakespeare’s words and Sibelius’s music, The Oregon Symphony pairs two twilight artists for a last hurrah.

In Beaverton, a little night market

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE CANTRELL On a clear warm Saturday evening at The Round in Beaverton, the joint was jumpin’. The propulsive sounds of drums and dancing feet were rising to the sky, and a big crowd was milling about the curved concrete

Blues finale: a festival with teeth

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE CANTRELL When the extraordinary young guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram waded into the crowd at the Waterfront Blues Festival on Sunday and started picking the strings with his teeth, you knew the whole darned party was gettin’ down. Musicians, fans,

Blues Fest 3: Let the good times roll

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE CANTRELL A lot of Louisiana took the stage on Saturday in Day Three of the Waterfront Blues Festival – groups as redolent of New Orleans and bayou country as Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble, Lil’ Pookie & the Zydeco

Waterfront Blues 2: In the Spirit

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE CANTRELL Day Two of the Waterfront Blues Festival dug deep into the spirit of music and life with an extraordinary set by the Spiritual Brothers and their sounds of Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso. Unlike the four-day festival’s first

Waterfront Blues: a bang-up start

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE CANTRELL It was a bang-up day on the Fourth of July in Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park, where this year’s Waterfront Blues Festival got off to a high-flying start and, come night time, a rainbow of fireworks lit up

Building Mozart’s garden

Photographs by JOE CANTRELL Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 18 years old when his opera La Finta Giardiniera (The Pretend, or Fake, Gardener) debuted at the Salvatortheater in Munich in 1775. When it opens Friday evening at Lincoln Performance Hall in Portland it’ll

Getting a drop on the New Year

Photographs by JOE CANTRELL First came the audience, filling downtown Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Then the musicians, and the tuning, and the program, which was fitting for a celebration: some selections from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s sprightly and creative Nutcracker Suite;

Waterfront Blues Festival: The End

Photographs and Story by Joe Cantrell How to characterize the last day of this year’s Waterfront Blues Festival? Traditionally the festival has ended with the fireworks, late night on the 4th of July, but this year we began with Wednesday, the 4th. Thursday sustained, Friday found

Waterfront Blues Festival: Day 3

Photographs and Story by Joe Cantrell Friday, July 6, at the Waterfront Blues Festival. This year’s third day of music reminding us how much there is to celebrate in and about the USA, dance lessons naming the African countries, the steps came

Waterfront Blues Festival: Day 2

Photographs and Story by Joe Cantrell The 4th of July with fireworks draws crowds big enough for the fire marshal to shut down the entrances, and that has traditionally been the last of the Waterfront Blues Festival. But this year it was

Photo First: glorious blue Fourth

Photographs and Story by Joe Cantrell Nothing defines the best of Portland’s funk art scene like the Waterfront Blues Festival, currently in its 31st year. Aside from the mission to raise money and canned food for the Oregon Food Bank, other than

These Are Not Abstracts

PHOTOGRAPHS AND ESSAY by JOE CANTRELL (EDITOR’S NOTE: Portland photographer Joe Cantrell will give a free art talk from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, May 16-17, in the lobby of the Ellyn Bye Studio of Portland Center Stage at The

Out & About: ACMA Elevated

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE CANTRELL One of the happier open secrets in the Oregon cultural world is the high-quality incubator of talent that is ACMA, the Arts & Communication Magnet Academy. Part of the Beaverton School District, it’s a rigorous public school for

Cascadia Composers A Ligeti Odyssey The Old Madeleine Church Portland Oregon
Lincoln County Historical Society Pacific Maritime Heritage Center The Curious World of Seaweed Newport Oregon
Portland Center Stage William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream Portland Oregon
Portland Playhouse The sounds of Afrolitical Movement Portland Oregon
Oregon Bach Festival Musical Wanderlust Eugene Oregon
High Desert Museum Creations of Spirit Bend Oregon
Triangle Productions The Inheritance Part 2 Portland Oregon
Profile Theatre How To Make An American Son Imago Theatre Portland Oregon
Portland Piano International Alexander Korsantia Portland Oregon
Portland Revels Rancho Trinidad Portland Oregon
Artists Repertory Theatre EM Lewis True Story The Armory Portland Oregon
Maryhill Museum of Art Columbia Gorge Washington
Oregon Bach Festival Musical Wanderlust Eugene Oregon
Northwest Dance Project Stravinsky Newmark Theatre Portland Oregon
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