MusicWatch Monthly: May the flowers be with you
May 4, 2023
In which the Merry Month promises premieres, percussions, a plethora of Bandcamp Friday pickings, and plenty more.
In which the Merry Month promises premieres, percussions, a plethora of Bandcamp Friday pickings, and plenty more.
In which we present a selection of Fee Free Friday albums–and timely concerts–featuring Y La Bamba, Caroline Shaw, Shara Nova, Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Andy Akiho.
The Shivas and !mindparade shimmy into Doug Fir Lounge; 45th Parallel illuminates the Universe; Machado Mijiga’s new “Uncharted,” “Loss” and Third Angle; MF Zakir.
In which we discuss Baroque music, marching bands, protest songs, and other acts of resistance.
Featuring KayelaJ, Donte Thomas, PDXJazz, Darrell Grant, and the latest edition of long-running hip-hop showcase The Thesis.
Listening backwards and forwards to the trends and traditions which (we hope) will continue into the next year.
Your guide to making last-minute holiday music plans through the New Year, from Nutcrackers to Pink Martinis.
In which we pull up a clutch of Halloween shows, screaming, by the roots.
From YOB to Bewitcher, just in time for Bandcamp Friday.
Choose your own adventure with a walking tour of Southeast Portland’s two-night music festival.
Black Bandcamp Matters: A wealth of sounds, from JxJURY to Darrell Grant.
As musicians play canary in the Covid coal mine, youth orchestras play concerti; cellos haunt The Old Church and Dante’s; Gaytheist and Eight Bells get hard.
A few seats remain for this historic concert. If you can’t make it to The Schnitz on Saturday, listen on the radio.
Reser Center marches forth in Beaverton; Black music still matters; “Ladies’ Night” with Third Angle.
Christmas concerts, drag shows, música latina, doom metal, and everything in between
The Oregon ArtsWatch guide to giving musicians your money
Eschewing the “return” to “live” music in favor of a relieved, sustained, sustainable isolation.
Third Angle moves out of the dark days with Sunday’s Fresh Air Fest on a Sauvie Island farm.
The composer and Reed prof talks about doing what all composers should: releasing a whole album of her own music.
ArtsWatch’s new series asks music groups: How are you doing? How about that last Year of Weirdness? What’s next?
“There’s a lot this country needs to explore, and understand, and comprehend about itself. Transformation–that’s what ‘Revolution’ is about.”
Matthew Neil Andrews on the joy of following Machado Mijiga, plus Joe Henderson, Bobby McFerrin, Freddie Hubbard & more.
In Black History Month, a good time to freshen up and start a new tradition of seeking out and hearing Black music.
Cut to December: It didn’t get less weird. Seeing the music and larger worlds from our almost front-row seats.
Christmas music is complicated and inescapable, ranging from infant refugees to flying reindeer.
I just have to tell you about this song I’ve had stuck in my head for the last nine months.
One function of radio in the digital age is savvy curation. How All Classical’s programming fills the bill.
Living composers, ghost composers, cloned string quartets, and a virtual songspiel
Shining a light on rose gardens Oregon musicians are tending; listening to Kenji Bunch on behalf of the City of Roses.
On the opposite of “the dead.” Living music, the “quick,” the good stuff: paying living performers, promoting living composers, responding to living audiences.
Last week we talked all about how everyone should be making albums right now, and hopefully you all nodded your heads and muttered, “hell yeah!”
Taking a spin with some recordings fit for troubled times (plus a few albums we wish existed).
Let’s talk about the part of the music industry most directly impacted by The Troubles: the shuttered venues where we no longer gather and share musical ecstasy. But let’s be honest…
In which we lament Geter’s Requiem, remember Menomena, and set Kevin down on the PDX Couch.
We’re toggling between extremes: mass digital socialization and truly next-level hermit action.
Strikes, unions, mega-corporations and the unpaid labors of love (with a tip of the hat to Bandcamp).
Examining the New Flesh. Staying home and slaying dragons. Running on a treadmill. It’s corona time.
Music in the Time of Pandemic: Turn off the web, put on an album, close your eyes, and listen.
No fooling, no fake news: an imaginative leap into a possible musical future.
First of all, how are you? Eating enough? Staying inside and entertained? Called your friends and/or family lately? Good. Let’s start by collectively admitting that we’re Not Doing Alright. It’s been a busy two weeks since last we spoke, dear reader: schools
Bad news, everyone! No, it’s not quite the end of the world. But, yes, shows are being canceled.
Matthew Neil Andrews on a trio of Portland orchestras keeping the American symphony alive.
Defining “American”: Caroline Shaw, nyckelharpa and hardanger fiddle, Carnatic voice & violin, harps & drums, American gothick.
Notes for an extra day: A weekend of concerts and a Portland Weird undectet.
Talking with “triple threat” Caroline Shaw, in town to perform her own music with Third Angle New Music.
An Oregon lineup that mines the meanings of “Americana” and “world music.”
Matthew Neil Andrews thinks about the phantom zone of “world music” and what it really means.
Matthew Neil Andrews spots composers everywhere, and a jazz festival, too.
Normally we like to contain all our monthly previews in one tidy column. But since February starts this weekend, we’d like to tell you all about the first stretch of Februarial concerts now–and we’ll tell you about the rest of the month
Tonight, tonight, tonight! Your busy music editor has to miss a bunch of cool stuff tonight, dear reader: I’ll be schlepping gongs and playing reyong with Gamelan Wahyu Dari Langit, opening for Wet Fruit at Mississippi Studios. If you followed our adventures
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