After less than two years on the job, Oregon Symphony President and CEO Isaac Thompson is leaving Oregon to take the same job in Minneapolis with the Minnesota Orchestra. The Minnesota native has a long history with his new (and nationally acclaimed) orchestra, serves on the board of Minnesota Public Radio, and will be close to family. “The opportunity to return to Minnesota to lead my hometown orchestra at this moment is deeply meaningful,” Thompson said in a statement. 

“Many of my formative musical experiences occurred at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, and I credit my knowledge of and love for the symphonic repertoire to the Minnesota Orchestra,” Thompson told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “The admiration with which Minnesota holds its flagship symphony orchestra is truly inspiring.”

The OSO board of directors appointed Paul Snyder as Thompson’s interim successor pending a search. Snyder’s experience in corporate and nonprofit organizations includes leadership roles at Tillamook County Creamery Association, InterContinental Hotels Group, and board service for Atlanta Opera, the Atlanta Symphony, and Portland Opera, Oregon Business and Industry, the Portland Metro Chamber and B Local PDX. Read our previous coverage of Thompson’s short Oregon stint. 

• Orchestra Nova Northwest appointed Adam Eccleston as its new executive director. You’ve read about the fab flutist, teacher and arts leader often in OAW, especially for his work at All Classical Radio, where he served as an artist in residence, radio host, producer, and chair of the station’s admirable Recording Inclusivity Initiative — a national effort to amplify underrepresented voices in classical music. 

Eccleston has performed at Carnegie Hall and across Europe and North America, and worked with organizations such as El Sistema USA and Global Leaders Institute, “where he pioneered innovative sustainability frameworks for arts professionals and transformed organizational practices through strategic coaching and youth education programs,” according to ONN’s press release. “He has a proven track record of raising close to $800,000 for various nonprofits to support educational research and program development.”

Eccleston succeeds Kevin Irving, who departs after three years as executive director of what was then called Portland Columbia Symphony orchestra, after serving as artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theatre. 

• Opera in the Park Portland has named Ashley Clark as its first executive director; she has served as the summer festival’s artistic administrator since 2020. She’s also worked for the L.A. Philharmonic, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and University of Chicago, and served as board president of Portland Kinderschule. “Clark has cultivated a stronger partnership with the Portland Public School District, launching a program that brings opera directly into the classroom,” reads OPP’s press release. The volunteer-powered, 23-year-old organization’s next performance is this Sunday’s Carmen at Peninsula Park.

Laurels

• The Oregon Symphony has chosen Grant Community School teacher Allie VanderMolen as its 2024/2025 Salem Music Educator of the Year, given each year to “music educators who teach in the Salem-Keizer Public Schools and who set the standard for excellence in music education,” according to the release.

• The Jazz Journalists Association has named the esteemed Portland drummer and educator Alan Jones one of its annual Jazz Heroes. Along with his ubiquitous presence on local bandstands for decades, Jones is acclaimed for his creation and leadership of Alan Jones Academy of Music (AJAM), a pay-what-you-can-afford program “designed for participants who are either on track to become professional musicians or already playing professionally,” wrote jazz journalism eminence (and ArtsWatch contributor) Lynn Darroch (himself a 2024 Jazz Hero) in a tribute. “And many notable Portland artists have passed through or are still participating in the program,” including the superb saxophonist Nicole Glover. Read Lynn’s ArtsWatch story here.

• The Oregon Arts Commission chose Portland’s Balamurali Balu as one of five Oregon performing artists receiving its 2025 Individual Artist Fellowships. The annual $5,000 grants are named for Joan Shipley, the revered late collector, philanthropist and supporter of many arts and humanities organizations. Best-known for blending traditional Eastern instruments with Western contemporary sounds, the Indian-born composer has scored numerous Bollywood films, and worked with Oregon’s The Immigrant Story. Read ArtsWatch’s coverage of Balu here and here.

OAC also picked Korean-American composer, singer and sound artist Bora Yoon for this year’s fellowship. Her music uses found objects, digital devices, voices and instruments from a variety of cultures and historical centuries.

• It wouldn’t be a music news wrap without yet more happy news of the precocious Lakeridge High School junior Elaina Stuppler. This summer’s accomplishments include achievements in three different musical genres: jazz, film scoring, and musical theater composition. Stuppler was named a winner of this year’s Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (sob), National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Disney Theatrical Productions, and Concord Theatricals. Broadway musicians and singers in New York City performed her winning composition, “Second Chances,” about the life of Maria Anna Mozart.

 The Grammy Museum selected Stuppler and only four other U.S. musicians for its summer screen scoring program in Los Angeles, where she’ll learn Hollywood tips from Grammy-winning recording industry professionals at Evergreen Studios.

And the venerated DownBeat Magazine named Stuppler’s “Opener” as 2025 Outstanding Original Composition for Large Ensemble in the High School Division in the magazine’s 48th Annual Student Music Awards.

Radio Signals

• Stuppler was earlier named 2024-25 Young Artist in Residence at Portland’s All Classical Radio. The station has released the handsome, limited-edition book Artist Anthology: 40 Creatives of the Pacific Northwest, which offers 40 profiles of Oregon artists written by Pacific Northwest writers, with photos by  prominent regional photographers. (Disclosure: I wrote two of the profiles, but receive no income from book sales.)

“All Classical Radio launched the Artist Anthology project in October 2023 with core funding from the National Endowment for the Arts,” the station explained in a press release. “The network released digital artist profiles online weekly, with radio highlights and promotions shared across its on-air and digital platforms. The Anthology book features expanded biographical artist profiles and additional exclusive content.” 

• Not all’s rosy at All Classical, though. There was Congress’s half-million dollar annual cut for the next two years in public funds, described in Bob Hicks’s recent ArtsWatch story. Only one member of Oregon’s congressional delegation — Second District Rep. Cliff Bentz (R) — voted to defund All Classical and other public media; all others voted to protect the station and public media from the attack on previously approved funds. 

On June 24, on-air hosts, sound engineers, and other staff at All Classical Radio authorized a strike in a 12-1 vote. The vote came in response to a contract proposal from station management to “decrease how much the organization pays for health insurance for employees’ spouses and children, making workers cover more of the costs,” reported NW Labor Press. “Under the health benefit changes proposed by management, some workers could see their annual healthcare costs increase by $10,000.” Despite recent inflation, the station also offered workers a 2.9 percent pay raise — less than half the figure proposed by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48, which represents 16 of its staff members. No strike date has been set. 

ArtsWatch has sent requests for comment to All Classical and IBEW, and will add them to this story when they are received. Expect to see more such conflicts as arts organizations come under increasing budget pressure from cutbacks by public and private funders.

Educational Initiatives

• Speaking of All Classical Radio and public media, check out this recent National Public Radio story about the station’s on-air host Coty Raven Morris, pertaining to her other job: Hinckley Assistant Professor of Music Education and Social Justice at as Portland State University, where she also directs choirs. Read James Bash’s ArtsWatch profile of Morris.

•  Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA has launched a new music education initiative: VSO Youth Virtuosi, USA, an all-star group of 54 student musicians selected from 11 schools across Southwest Washington school districts. Selected by music teachers, they’re coached by orchestra principal players. The group debuts Saturday, August 2, at the third annual Vancouver USA Arts and Music Festival, where they’ll be directed by PSU music prof Ken Selden and Seattle Symphony conductor laureate Gerard Schwarz in music by Saint-Saëns and Beethoven.

• Speaking of Vancouver, that city’s Opera Quest Northwest educational nonprofit organization, which teaches Southwest Washington elementary school students about opera history, stories, and songs, has merged with Portland Opera, where OQN’s offerings will complement Portland Opera to Go and other educational efforts.

Departures

• And speaking of Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra received a $1,250,000 gift commitment from Dr. Michael C. Liu to support the orchestra’s chamber music series. In memory of Liu’s late wife, a stalwart VSO volunteer and advocate who died this year, the series will be renamed as the VSO-USA Nien-Wei Hsiao Chamber Music Series and supported by a new Nien-Wei Hsiao endowment fund. “The funds, which will be distributed over multiple years, will be used to increase musician and staff salaries and strengthen the endowment,” according to the press release. A prominent physician, Dr. Liu is also well-known as a professional concert pianist, board member and donor for the orchestra.

• Budget-strapped Portland Community College announced this month that it’s cutting back on its music education, including the innovative and fast-growing music and sonic arts program, which combines digital and musical skill training to accommodate 21^st century artistic realities. Read Charles Rose’s May ArtsWatch story that explains the context.

“If you want a career in music technology … we’re the only place that you could learn any of that stuff,” instructor Jesse Mejía told Willamette Week after the final decision. “What we’re teaching is pretty special, and it’s directly serving the professional and music tech communities in Portland.”

The closure is a blow to students uninclined or unable to afford elite musical education. “takes away this unique niche that we serve,” instructor Mary Kadderly told The Oregonian. “Our students are non-traditional. They don’t want to go to a traditional music department.” 

• I was saddened to learn of the end of Musica Maestrale last month, as founder Hideki Yamaya leaves the U.S. “to pursue new opportunities, and to escape current political climates in this country,” he wrote. For 13 years, MM’s intimate shows presented some of the finest — and rarest — Baroque and Renaissance chamber music on Oregon stages. He’d earlier moved to the U.S. East Coast, but often returned to perform in Oregon.

Our loss is Yamaya’s gain, as those new opportunities arise in that Mecca of early music, The Netherlands. You can hear Musica Maestrale’s farewell concerts this weekend in Eugene, Oregon City, and Portland, as Yamaya plays masterpieces for lute and guitar from 17th-century Italy. Read Lorin Wilkerson’s touching ArtsWatch story.

• Finally, although it happened just after we published our spring news wrap, we can’t let the death of one of Oregon’s most nationally prominent musicians go unlamented here. The great singer-songwriter Michael Hurley died April 1 at age 83 in Portland, on his way to his Brownsmead home, after performing at Tennessee’s Big Ears Festival.

In the latter part of his storied career, Hurley was a fixture in Portland folk-music circles (particularly at Laurelthirst Pub) since the late 1990s, and a national treasure starting with his nights in New York’s famed early 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene. Read the New York Times obituary and Willamette Week’s appreciation. And listen to a KBOO-FM interview with Hurley here.