We’ve been chronicling the adventures and achievements of young Portland composer, musician and student Elaina Stuppler over the past couple years, and her winning streak continues. Stuppler won the Oregon Music Education Association’s annual high school composition competition. The award capped an eventful season for the talented Lakeridge High school junior:

• The rising young Oregon trombonist/pianist/composer was named a YoungArts Award Winner with Distinction in the Voice/Singer-Songwriter Category. She was one of 170 winners (chosen from among 11,000 student applicants from across the country) who got to participate in National YoungArts Week in Miami in January, where they received mentorship from leading artists.

• The Bloomington Symphony Orchestra selected her composition, Rose City Wonderland, from its recent call for scores and performed it last November. 

• Stuppler was chosen as one of three national finalist trombone players from the United States by Music Teachers National Association. Winners will be announced at the competition coming up this weekend, March 15-18.

These laurels join her earlier recent achievements we’ve covered in several previous news stories, including ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Award National Finalist, 2023 Luna Composition Fellow created by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ellen Reid and Grammy-Nominated composer Missy Mazzoli (the first Luna Composition Fellow with the Oregon Symphony), and U.S. President’s Education Award. She was selected for New York’s Juilliard School Summer Composition Program and took master classes with Pulitzer winners Wynton Marsalis and Tania Leon, and Kronos Quartet. 

Stuppler’s music has won recognition from Seattle Symphony, Little Orchestra Society, Oregon Symphony, Metropolitan Youth Symphony of New York, Portland Youth Philharmonic, and the National Association for Music Education. At age 16, she’s already performed at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, and Grammy Museum. 

Here at home in Oregon, Stuppler serves as assistant Principal Trombonist with the Portland Youth Philharmonic, participates in FearNoMusic’s Young Composers Project, and plays trombone in Lakeridge High School’s jazz and wind ensembles. Her student-led Jazz Combo won first in state last year. She was selected for the 2025 All-State and All-Northwest jazz bands.

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Stuppler is also All Classical Radio‘s Young Artist in Residence (extended through 2025), where she’s performed at various events and participates in programming the station’s International Children’s Arts Network (ICAN), and interviewed Julie Andrews, Itzhak Perlman, and “Weird Al” Yankovic. Last month, the station showcased several of her sparkling, varied scores on its essential weekly Thursdays @ Three live show. 

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Speaking of All Classical Portland, the station’s contributing host and producer Coty Raven Morris was selected as one of 10 finalists for the GRAMMY Music Educator Award, which was ultimately won by Adrian L. Maclin of Cordova High School in Memphis. We’ve also chronicled Morris’s adventures in several of these news wraps, as well as James Bash’s ArtsWatch profile.

Morris teaches at Portland State University, where she’s Hinckley Assistant Professor of Choir, Music Education and Social Justice. Morris also founded Being Human Together, “a community that uses music education to normalize challenging topics through conversation and connection,” according to PSU’s press release. This month alone, she conducted the university’s Chamber Choir, Thorn Choir and Rose Choir at their winter concert, Kaleidoscope, and led a “community sing” with her students and PSU University Choir, Community Chorus and Vocal Collective at Portland’s First Christian Church.

The station also named longtime on-air host Brandi Parisi as Radio Network Program Director for All Classical Radio and the International Children’s Arts Network. According to the press release, in this newly created position, she’ll “supervise and guide the staff responsible for creating the daily programming, advancing creative and cohesive strategic initiatives across the two networks.” Her voice is a familiar one to American classical radio listeners. Parisi has worked at multiple stations across the country for three decades, and hosts All Classical Radio’s Played in Oregon program, which features recordings of classical concerts from around the state.

Laurels

All Classical Radio’s International Children’s Arts Network (ICAN) won the 2025 Schnitzer Wonder Award. Presented by the Oregon Symphony, the $10,000 cash prize “aims to advance the endeavors of the receiving organization, recognizing and celebrating excellence in youth mentorship and education, collaboration with emerging artists and students, and fostering a vibrant music and arts community united by shared passions and ambitions,” so reciteth the press release. Read ArtsWatch’s coverage of ICAN here.

All Classical Radio has been approved for a recommended Grants for Arts Projects award of $20,000 by the National Endowment for the Arts. “The grant will support All Classical Radio’s upcoming Access Recording Project,” according to the station’s press release, which “aims to break down financial barriers to high quality recording, rehearsal, and performance spaces and resources for artists and organizations from diverse backgrounds.” 

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We asked ACR whether the grant would still happen, given all the chaos perpetrated by the current national regime and its demonstrated hostility to cultural diversity. “[R]recent changes have not affected the status of the award,” a station spokesperson who checked it out replied. “There is no reason to believe the offer will not be finalized and there should be no change, based on what we know.” 

Of course, as ArtsWatch has reported, everything is up in the air with the NEA these days. Fingers crossed.

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Another veteran of All Classical Radio, Orchestra Nova Northwest principal flutist Adam Eccleston, is one of 20 Oregonians selected to receive a Spark Award from the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, a new program that supports “self-directed pursuit by professional artists of new ideas… essential to our state’s cultural vitality.” 

Eccleston was All Classical Portland’s 2020-2021 Artist in Residence, hosts its On Deck with Young Musicians show, and chairs its Recording Inclusivity Initiative.

Other Sparky 2024 music award winners,selected by a panel of 28 national and Oregon-based performing arts professionals, include Okaidja Afroso, Marisa Anderson, Ethan Gans-Morse, Jimmie Herrod, Lamiae Naki, Talilo Marfil-Tran, and Luke Wyland. Unit Souzou taiko performer Michelle Fujii won in the Interdisciplinary performance category. 

On Record

Portland singer/composer Alicia Jo Rabins and Washington State’s award-winning Camas High School Choir, directed by Ethan Chessin, released a live album and film of their world premiere concert I Was A Desert: Songs of the Matriarchs, recorded live at Portland’s Revolution Hall in April 2024. Read Daryl Browne’s ArtsWatch story about the pair and their project. 

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The live album is available at all major music download and streaming sites, including Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and Amazon. The film of the live concert and an accompanying mini-documentary about the project are available to watch for free at aliciajo.com, Vimeo, and YouTube.

Like Morris, Chessin was a finalist for the 2025 Music Educator Award, presented by the Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum.

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The Portland Youth Philharmonic continues its long tradition of championing contemporary music with the world premiere release of Navona Records’ recording of a pair of new symphonies by acclaimed composers Lera Auerbach and Polina Nazaykinskaya. Inspired by Greek mythology, Auerbach’s Chimera incorporates themes from her ballet score for The Little Mermaid. Nazaykinskaya’s April Song follows a winter-into-spring course, culminating in what the press release, referencing another mythological critter, calls “a triumphant rise from the ashes.” The orchestra had earlier performed them in concert. 

The recording joins PYP’s previous release of its performances of music by the revered Portland composer Tomáš Svoboda.

While too many youth arts programs focus on looking backwards, the century-young PYP connects its young musicians to the music of their own time. Directed by David Hattner, the nation’s first youth orchestra just celebrated the centennial of its debut concert. Check out this spring’s varied concert offerings here. That ambitious May orchestral program is one any adult orchestra in the world would envy.

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Arrivals & Departures

The Eugene Symphony, which has a storied history of spotting promising young conductors on the rise (Marin Alsop, Giancarlo Guerrero, et al), picked 33-year-old Russian conductor and composer Alex Prior as its next music director, beginning this coming fall. “In 2017, Alex became the Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at just 22 years of age, the youngest artistic leader of a major North American orchestra in modern history,” according to the ESO press release, and made several recordings with that band. He’s also guest conducted various major and mid-major orchestras (specializing in American music, and championing younger living composers) and opera companies, and composed ballets and other orchestral music performed by orchestras worldwide. 

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The Oregon Coast Music Festival appointed Rogue Valley Symphony conductor Martin Majkut as its music director. He will continue to serve as music director for RVS and for the Queens Symphony Orchestra in New York. 

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Portland Taiko promoted Kelsey Furuta to Executive Director. She’s served the organization as performer, instructor, and most recently Executive Administrator.

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One of the Northwest’s premier arts colleges, Cornish College of the Arts, is merging with Seattle University, the Seattle Times reports. The schools will retain their separate campuses and leadership, and Cornish students will become Seattle U students come fall 2025. Cornish hosts a well-regarded visual arts curriculum, and its fine gamelan music program has boasted top composers over the years including Janice Giteck, Paul Dresher, Jarrad Powell and more.

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Update: the Times is now reporting that the newly finalized agreement now means that the “merger” is now instead technically an “asset contribution,” meaning Seattle U is absorbing Cornish. And, except for various expected regulatory approvals, the, uh, fusion has been speeded up, and the deal will close — along with Cornish itself, which the Times reports is $10 million in debt — at the end of this May. All Cornish faculty and staff will be laid off, with an unspecified number (“some”) rehired as Seattle U employees.

The combination is part of a trend involving arts colleges with declining enrollments. A similar move some years ago brought Oakland’s renowned Mills College under the aegis of Boston’s Northeastern University.

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One of Oregon’s most beloved and distinctive ensembles, 3 Leg Torso is ending its nearly 30 year run of delighting audiences with their unclassifiable, globally influenced chamber music. Starting as a trio and evolving through various configurations (always anchored by co-founders violinist Bela Balogh and accordionist Courtney Von Drehle), the group also frequently performed with Oregon bands and orchestras. (Bela’s father, Lajos, was long a familiar figure leading various Portland orchestras, including an annual outdoor summer festival.) In recent years, it performed an annual elvish Christmas variety show. 3LT’s farewell concert happens March 23 at Washington’s Raymond Theatre. 

Here’s a glimpse of their last Oregon performance, with the Lakeridge High School band, including Balogh’s son and Elaina Stuppler. 

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Another Oregon music tradition ends this year. Portland pianist Michael Allen Harrison announced the impending end of his Ten Grands concerts after a quarter century of raising thousands of dollars for music education through his Play it Forward project. (Read ArtsWatch’s Harrison profile and story about it, and Linda Ferguson’s recent account of Harrison as composer, revolving around his most recent musical theater project.) The final shows happen May 9-11 at Beaverton’s Patricia Reser Center For The Arts.

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