Pop bands tour all the time, so much that the rigors of the road have long been described and decried in songs (e.g. “On the Road Again”) and even cinema (e.g The Last Waltz). So do a few of the most famous jazz and classical chamber groups, even a few orchestras. But what about Oregon classical chamber ensembles? Delgani Quartet often plays Eugene and Portland. But I know of only one that tours two dozen Oregon cities — and it’s a relatively new ensemble that plays new (and old) music, including works by Oregon composers. 

Formed in 2023, Eugene’s Oasis Ensemble plays its first Portland concert this Sunday, April 13, with more shows around the state this month and next. 

Oasis is special in another way. After multiple accolades and thousands of performances, two of its members have reached an age where most accomplished musicians — of any kind — start thinking about slowing down, scaling back. Instead, the flute-cello-piano trio is moving forward, playing new and unusual music, and expanding its musical and geographical orbits.

Rare Combo

The impetus for Oasis came from the member likely best known to ArtsWatch readers. Dawn Weiss served as the Oregon Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist for a quarter century, and starred in chamber music concerts in Oregon and around the world. Then she scaled back her performances to focus on teaching, parenting and other family concerns, and the occasional chamber performance. 

“Dawn is a great dancer, which means she listens with all her senses, which makes her especially sensitive as a chamber musician,” says her friend and sometime musical partner, pianist Maria Choban, a frequent ArtsWatch contributor. “She’s dancing with her band to the music.”

When Covid shut the music world down, Weiss decided to take a break from flute playing, moving to Eugene from the Portland metro area. But once concert halls reopened, “eventually I got restless and began concertizing as a soloist and eventually connected with some great musicians,” she told ArtsWatch. 

After one of her recitals, she met a cellist and mentioned a flute and cello piece she’d long wanted to perform, but could never find a Portland cellist who wanted to play it with her. That cellist was Louis Lowenstein, a former member of the Chicago Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras who’d also played with jazz musicians including Marvin Hamlisch and Bobby McFerrin, and also played in Eugene’s microphilharmonic. He agreed to give the piece a shot, they added it to her program, and began playing duo recitals around town.

Sponsor

Turns out the flute and cello repertoire is pretty restrictive, though, so they added prize winning young pianist Andrew Cannestra, a doctoral student at the University of Oregon who’d already performed in major American concert halls and recorded albums on the Naxos label. As a composer with a more experimental bent, he added another perspective to their mix of classical and jazz influences.

They chose their name because “it sounded like a breath of fresh air,” Weiss explains, “a place where you can hear beautiful music, a place to replenish the spirit.” 

Refreshing the Repertoire

 The piano added depth to the texture, and the trio configuration expanded the group’s menu, which they further augmented by borrowing rep from other instrumental combinations, arranging, say, a standard piano-violin-cello trio for their own considerable forces. Their playlist now covers three dozen works, from classics by such paragons as Ravel, Faure, Beach and Beethoven to Oregon composers Paul Safar, Andrew Lewinter and Brent Weaver. Female composers including Fanny Mendelssohn also play a prominent role in Oasis programs, though not this Portland show.

Yet they wanted more. The flute-cello-piano combo is “an underused instrumentation,” Weiss says, and deserves more music written for it. So Oasis decided to commission some. One recipient, California composer Carol Worthey, even named her new piece Oasis. The group just posted its 2025 call for scores.

One of those commissions went to Newberg composer Brent Weaver. The success of his six Vignettes for flute and cello led Oasis to commission two more world premieres, including this weekend’s Northwest Sketches, which the composer calls “my attempt to evoke the beauty of our area through vignettes of some iconic locations in the Pacific Northwest,” including the Columbia River (Wimahl); Mts. Hood (Wy’East), St. Helens (Lowit) and Adams (Klickitat); and a sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Weaver also drew inspiration from indigenous Oregonian legends about those magnificent places

 The Portland program also includes Felix Mendelssohn’s own arrangement for flute (replacing violin) of his justly celebrated first piano trio, and a cheerful, swinging trio by Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin, who died in 2020. It’s received a number of recordings and reflects the jazz pianist and prolific composer’s lifelong quest — exuberantly successful here!— to blend jazz and classical music.

Road Warriors

Having found such a rare and fruitful combination of instrumentation and players, Oasis decided the best way to get the word out beyond Eugene was to take their shows on the road. Last year when Weiss was playing with the Newport Symphony, she told her hostess about the trio — and immediately received an offer and assistance to bring it to town. She started calling other venues along the coast and elsewhere and soon had a couple dozen dates booked, from bookstores to churches to concert halls. Programs differ among the performances. This first Portland show should spread the word farther. They have even more scheduled for next season, featuring a world premiere by Italian composer Roberto Piana and much more contemporary music. 

Sponsor

Oasis also hopes to record some of its commissions, and Weiss continues to research repertoire and possible grant support to make such projects happen. With such a busy schedule, Oasis is hiring help for management, grant writing and other administrative tasks. 

Weiss’s enthusiasm for the band shines forth in both its energetic music making and the glow in the veteran musician’s attitude when she talks about it. As its name implies, Oasis shows that it’s never too late even for veteran artists to refresh and replenish their artistic spirits.

“I love this trio,” she says. “It’s been such a deeply moving, musically rewarding experience. There are three of us, but it feels like one soul that’s moving together. As long as my spirit is moved by the music, I’m going to keep doing it.”

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Oasis Ensemble performs at 3 pm April 13, in Portland State University’s Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75 (Tickets here), and 3 pm April 27 at Eugene’s First United Methodist Church. The season’s remaining schedule  includes a fundraiser for Indivisible Eugene at Tsunami Books May 1, Eugene’s Mandala Sanctuary May 4, Florence Unitarian Universalist Fellowship May 16, Newport Pacific Maritime Heritage Center,May 17, Lincoln City Cultural Center May 18, and Eugene’s Unity of the Valley Church May 29 and The Jazz Station June 1. Check Oasis’s website for times, programs and ticket info.