Venerated Portland singer LaRhonda Steele is battling cancer, and a group of jazz and other musical all stars are turning out to help. On  Saturday, October 18, The Norman Sylvester Band, Curtis Salgado, Mary Flower, Renato Caranto, and a dozen more musical luminaries will light up Alberta Rose Theatre in a benefit concert for Steele, the Oregon Music Hall of Fame honoree who’s graced Oregon clubs and stages since arriving in Portland in 1993, and led the Portland Interfaith Gospel Choir since 2013, where she teaches traditional Black gospel music and its historical and socioeconomic context. ArtsWatch contributor Lynn Darroch and Ken Boddie are hosting the show. Steele herself joins the fight in Oregon Repertory Singers’ Sing for the Cure concert this Saturday at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (read more about this concert in Daryl Browne’s recent choral column).

Portland Opera announced that General Director Sue Dixon will retire at the end of this year after 11 years of leading the 60-year-old company through turbulent times. The company’s announcement praised her dedicated service and fundraising ability (over $40 million in contributed revenue not including COVID relief funds), creation and execution of a five year strategic plan, mission statement revision, rebranding, and cultural equity plan. It also cited her leadership in much needed tech upgrades and commissions of new works (including two world premieres) and boosting audience attendance for those new creations. Dixon steered the company through the COVID crisis, the departure of longtime leader Christopher Mattaliano and the sale of its headquarters building. Her influence extended beyond PO to other Portland national cultural institutions. A search has already begun for Dixon’s successor. 

Meanwhile, we noticed that the official titles of the company’s artistic leaders have been upgraded. We’d previously reported Damien Geter’s accession to interim music director in 2021; the rising star Chicago-based composer and erstwhile Portlander is now listed as Music Director. In 2023, ArtsWatch reported that the company had named Alfrelynn Roberts as Director of Artistic Planning and Operations. She’s now Artistic Director. Karen Slack has transitioned from artistic adviser to Artistic Ambassador. (Click on their names to see exactly what those jobs entail, and read James Bash’s recent profile on Slack here.) Congrats to all!

Just when we thought the Oregon Bach Festival’s long, twisty journey to new artistic leadership had finally reached its end, the festival announced the departure of venerated American conductor and composer Craig Hella Johnson after only one season as Artistic Partner, in which role he shared responsibility with fellow Artistic Partner Jos van Veldhoven for the “festival’s choral vision and cultivating artist relationships that resulted in new works and commissions,” OBF’s statement read. Johnson’s departure “to dedicate more time to compose and create, particularly composing and arranging music,” as he wrote in a statement, leaves van Veldhoven as the sole remaining partner, in charge of historically informed performances. The rest of OBF’s “holistic artistic leadership team” includes James Boyd continuing to be responsible for programming and administration, Anton Armstrong (Youth Choral Academy), Paul Jacobs (Organ Institute), Kathy Saltzman Romey (Chorus Director), and Sharon J. Paul (UO Chamber Choir).

Jacksonville’s Britt Music & Arts Festival chose American conductor Norman Huynh as the fifth music director in the annual summer festival’s 62-year history. ArtsWatch readers will remember Huynh, who now directs Montana’s Bozeman Symphony, from his tenure as the Oregon Symphony’s associate conductor, and he’s conducted orchestras across the US.

Huynh’s Britt predecessor, Teddy Abrams, who directed the festival from 2014-23, was named artistic and executive director of Southern California’s storied Ojai Festival, which has been one of America’s primary showcases of contemporary music for decades.  The Grammy Award-winning 38-year-old Berkeley native, who’s directed the American music-oriented Louisville Orchestra since 2014, is one of America’s rising star conductors, and has long been considered a possible successor of his mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas, at the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Kevin Irving, former executive director of Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, has landed a new job as executive director of Pennsylvania’s York Symphony Orchestra. Before his tenure at PCO (now known as Orchestra Nova Northwest), which ended last year, Irving served eight years as Artistic Director of Oregon Ballet Theatre.

Sponsor

One of the most important contributors to the American folk music scene, Joe Hickerson, died August 17 in Portland at age 89. As both singer/guitarist and archivist at the Library of Congress for more than three decades, the Illinois native helped preserve and disseminate much of this country’s great folk music tradition. After retiring from the LoC, he eventually moved to Portland in 2013, where he contributed to the Portland Folklore Society’s newsletter. Along with Portland-born Harry Smith, who compiled the Smithsonian’s famed Anthology of American Folk Music, Hickerson was a major chronicler of American music. Listen to the story on NPR’s “All Things Considered” here.

Educational Endeavors

Speaking of ONN, the orchestra announced a merger with the Portland-area youth arts education organization Cognizart by MetroArts Inc. Shannon Emory will continue as Executive Director of Cognizart and now also serves as Chief Executive Officer of ONN, where she’ll work with Executive Director Adam Eccleston.

In this inequitable economy, where so many are forced to find shelter with roommates or family instead of their own spaces, Portland’s PHAME Academy is lucky to finally have its own home. After four decades of sharing space with other organizations, the innovative arts academy serving adults with developmental disabilities has moved into a fully accessible one-story building in Southeast Portland’s Ladd’s Addition, across the street from Portland’s premier disability hub: the Seven Corners building that houses Community Vision, Community Pathways, FACT Oregon, and Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities. The new HQ already boasts large open space for music, acting, and dance, a dedicated visual art space, two multi-use classrooms, a student lounge, and a program staff office, and the organization plans a major construction project next summer to complete the transformation. 

PHAME also announced the hiring of its new Executive Director, Carrie Siahpush.

Best known for its annual summer jazz festival, Portland’s Montavilla Jazz continues its admirable educational work, scoring an Arts Learning Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission that funds Carmelo Torres Latin Jazz class at Vestal Elementary, and a $10,000 grant from the Randall Charitable Trust to continue programming with trumpeter Quinn Walker at Mt. Tabor Middle School. ArtsWatch covered MJ’s Artist-in-Residence program at Vestal, which was recently featured as a case study in impactful arts programming at Portland Public Schools’ Arts Convening of Visual and Performing Arts Partners.

Portland’s All Classical Radio has named Reed College prof Kirsten Volness as a Composer in Residence, and Camas High School junior Dana Sparling as Young Artist in Residence. The positions give them access to the station’s first-rate facilities and other career-building opportunities. The station also chose Westview High junior Kristen Kim and Interlochen Academy junior Kaden Prichard as its 2025-2026 Young Artist Ambassadors. 

Volness is working on All Classical’s forthcoming third album (which will contain one of her originals) in its Recording Inclusivity Initiative, which produces new high-quality recordings of classical music by underrepresented composers. Sparling (who plays flute, piccolo, and saxophone, and is a member of Metropolitan Youth Symphony), Kim and Prichard will receive mentorship, coaching and financial support for their career development. 

Sponsor

All Classical also announced the artists who’ll participate in this year’s edition of the station’s Access Recording Project, which it describes as “a first-of-its-kind initiative that provides regional artists the opportunity to record, workshop ideas, or perform in our world-class facilities, completely free of charge.” 

• Portland’s The Immigrant Story (read one of our many stories) will use the station’s James DePreist Recording Studio to produce a high-quality recording of a new commission. 
• Eugene’s nonesuch.reedquintet will record narration set to music by George Gershwin and Claude Debussy for “a new children’s book designed to stimulate curiosity and participation in their music and arts education efforts,” according to the station’s announcement.“Jimbo’s Dreamland … will feature words and artwork by a commissioned Pacific Northwest children’s book author and illustrator. 
• And award-winning teenage pianist Nikita Istratov will perform and record a recital in All Classical’s Irving Levin Performance Hall, showcasing the music of Sofia Gubaidulina. 

Gabriel Kahane offered a thoughtful, artist-centric tribute to arts journalism in The Atlantic’s July issue. In A Love Letter to Music Listings, the Portland composer lamented the nationwide loss of weekly music listings, which impeded his search for entertainment during a brief return to the city where he lived for two decades before moving to Oregon, and which helped ignite his own career there. He also supplies a useful recent history of the significance of such stories and the reasons for and impact of their decline in NYC, and suggests some possible solutions. 

Kahane’s story prompted an equally fascinating rejoinder from arts administrator, author, researcher and professor Hannah Grannemann, a former theater director who now teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 

Hey, ArtsWatch readers and artists— any ideas for how we might take on the challenge posed by these articles here in Oregon? Please reply in comments below, or send them, and any other news of Oregon music you think our readers might enjoy, to music@orartswatch.org.

Kahane also opens for and conducts the Oregon Symphony with M. Ward Oct. 21 at Portland’s Revolution Hall, then returns to his singer-songwriter roots in a highly recommended chamber pop show at Portland’s Alberta Rose Theatre November 4. He also released a sparkling new album, Heirloom, featuring the piano concerto he composed for his father Jeffrey, who performs it on the album. Listen to that, and pick up a copy on vinyl or CD, right here:

We’ll leave you with the video for The Watershed Rock Opera, performed live at Hood River’s Columbia Center last April and now available to watch online. It was conceived by local multimedia producer Sarah Fox, with music directed by Hood River percussionist Leila Kaneda and composed by her husband, Erik Kaneda, for eight-piece orchestra and eight-member choir, accompanying recorded interviews with local experts. Read more here.