Summer is just about here, dear reader, and that means it’s music festival time. Starting this month we have the usual big ones: Chamber Music Northwest in Portland; Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene; and Britt Music & Arts Festival in Jacksonville. We also have two of the smaller ones: the one-day contemporary music festival Makrokosmos Project, now in its eleventh season, and In A Landscape, which is not so much a festival as it is a summer-long roving musical adventure.

And–since it’s still technically spring until June 21 and the “normal” concert season is still wrapping up–we’ll also highlight a few standalone concerts like Metropolitan Youth Symphony’s season-ender with esperanza spalding, a pair of Cascadia Composers shows, and the return of Renegade Opera’s “Bird Songs of Opera.”

Let’s start, though, with the big event coming this weekend: the expanded version of Joe Cantrell, Ed Edmo, and Nancy Ives’s “Celilo Falls” with the Oregon Symphony. You can read all about this one in our recent interview with Cantrell and Ives right here, so we’re mainly bringing it up today for two reasons:

1. To remind you that it’s this damn weekend, so cancel your other plans and pick your seats;
2. To let you know that All Classical Radio will be recording the Monday performance, broadcasting it live, archiving it for your later enjoyment, and eventually releasing it as an album via its Recording Inclusivity Initiative and partnership with Navona Records.

Oregon Symphony presents “Celilo Falls” (and also Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”) in Salem on June 6 and in Portland on June 7, 8, and 9. More information and tickets available here. All Classical Radio’s live broadcast starts at 7:15 on Monday, June 9, and will be archived for two weeks. Listen to that right here.

Tuned differently

Yesterday, when you read our interview with composer Justin Ralls, you probably scratched your head at “House of Scordatura” and thought, “House of what?”

Scordatura, of course! It’s a term all classical string players know and dread–it means you have to re-tune one of your strings to meet the demands of some crazy composer who couldn’t just be satisfied with the violin’s normal G-D-A-E like everyone else (Bach’s Fifth Cello Suite calls for the high A string to be tuned down to G, the viola in Mozart’s wildly lovely Sinfonia Concertante has the whole viola tuned a half-step sharp, and so on).

House of Scordatura is yet another new music organization founded by the illustrious Ron Blessinger, who has roamed the forested halls of Oregon music for decades like some kind of Douglas fir version of Johnny Appleseed. He’s always to be seen somewhere in the Oregon Symphony’s first violin section, sawing away a few seats behind Sarah Kwak; he recorded Robert Kyr’s Violin Concerto Trilogy with Denise Huizenga, Pacific Rim Gamelan, and Third Angle New Music, back when he was running 3A; from there he moved over to 45th Parallel Universe with his old friend Greg Ewer (read our interview with those two nuts right here, and read our interview with current 45|| executive director Lisa Lipton right here); and now this.

Here’s what Blessinger has to say about the latest venture:

I was lucky to grow up in Hermiston, Oregon — a town full of the kind of people who are the salt of the earth. Hardworking, honest folks who taught me that community isn’t just something you talk about — it’s something you live every day. I carry that spirit with me everywhere I go. It’s a big reason why I’ve spent my whole career chasing ways to bring fresh, living music to the kinds of communities that don’t always get front-row seats. Places like the one that made me.

I’m blessed to be joined by my amazing wife, Ann Medellin (2-time Washington music teacher of the year), and tech genius and longtime friend Danny Rosenberg in this endeavor. We all share a passion for musical art and for our beautiful state and its people.

That’s the soul behind House of Scordatura. It’s a place where wild ideas get to breathe. Where art gets made by hand, by heart, right here in Oregon.

And we’re kicking it all off with a bang — or, more accurately, a full-blown, joyful mess called “Turkish Rambo.”

It’s part cult movie, part live concert, part unhinged sound effects rodeo — all performed live right there in the theater. If you’re looking for polite entertainment… maybe sit this one out. If you’re looking for pure, hilarious, chaotic fun? Grab a seat.

But we’re just getting warmed up…

After that, we roll into “Animated Oregon” — a traveling celebration of original animation and live music, all created by Oregon artists, telling stories you won’t find anywhere else.

And we’re taking it where it belongs: to the historic theaters, the old movie houses, the community halls that used to be the heartbeat of every town.

We want to bring those spaces back to life — not just for a show, but for a gathering. A real one. And that’s where this newsletter comes in.

This won’t just be a feed of event dates and promo blasts.

It’s going to be a gathering place for Oregon stories — past, present, and still in the making. We’ll follow the journey as these stories tumble, crash, and soar their way into performances. We’ll dig into the odd histories of the towns we visit. Share the wild ideas that sparked new works. Celebrate the artists, the audiences, and the happy accidents along the way. Because to me, the real magic isn’t just the moment the lights go down.

It’s everything that happens getting there.

House of Scordatura is about building something a little messy, a little wild, and very, very alive — together.

Thanks for being part of the ride, and for sharing our organization to friends and family far and wide. Let’s see where this thing goes.

And thank you, Ron! We’ll be speaking with Mr. Blessinger soon enough about all this “gathering” talk. Sounds like exactly what we all need these days, doesn’t it? For now, check out Turkish Rambo.

House of Scordatura presents “Turkish Rambo” at Hollywood Theatre on Friday, June 27 (7:30 pm) and on Saturday, June 28 (1 pm and 7:30 pm). More information and tickets are available right there.

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth

Only twenty guests get the privilege of hearing Cycles of Life, by Cacadia Composers Dianne Davies and Lisa Neher, at the Southwest Portland home of Lyn Morris–it’s one of those Friends of Chamber Music “Dinner with Friends” shindigs, complete with donor-level ticket prices and appetizers and wines and so on. You can read all about this song cycle, and the two composers behind it, in last year’s OAW profile; you can watch last February’s premiere right here:

That’s at 3 pm, and for a bonus you also get the premiere of Davies’ setting of Cordelia’s Act I monologue from King Lear, which goes a little something like this:

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

That evening, in Salem, you can catch another Cascadia concert: “Sounding Across the Cascades: New Horn Music from the Pacific Northwest.” Some of Cascadia’s best concerts feature a single ensemble playing a variety of PNW composers, and this one looks to be no different. The Willamette River Horn Quartet, led by composer and hornist David A. Jones, will perform music by Rex Bell, Sy Brandon, I’lana S. Cotton, Mark Pritchard, Christina M. Richardson, the always entertaining Nicholas Yandell and Tristan Bliss, and Jones himself. Here’s Bliss & Yandell earlier this year at Cascadia’s “Fearless Lieder” concert:

Friends of Chamber Music presents “Cycles of Life” at 3 pm on Saturday, June 7, in Portland. More information and tickets here. Cascadia Composers presents “Sounding the Cascades” at 7:30 pm, June 7, at Saint Mark Lutheran Church in Salem. More information and tickets here.

Struttin’

Remember last year when the singers of Renegade Opera dressed up as birds and moseyed around Leach Botanical Garden singing arias? Well, they’re at it again, this time at three different locations spread across four dates in June: Bird Songs of Opera happens the 14th and 15th back at Leach; the 24th at Camp Rivendale in Tualatin Hills Park; and the 27th at Raptor Ridge Winery in Newberg. (Note: we’ve just learned that the Rivendale performance–yes, yes, that’s a nod to Rivendell, the Last Homely House West of the Mountains–is at capacity. You snozt, you lost.)

Accompanying the singers, just like last year, is Maeve Stier on accordion. You could almost stop right there: opera singers dressed as birds, singing classic arias in beautiful locations, accompanied by accordion. We’re done here. But Stier is something special. They’ve just returned from a run playing accordion on Broadway (Cabaret) and recently won the coveted “Portland’s Best Busker 2025” award at Buskathon’s “Busk-Off Grand Finale” in April. Here’s Stier last year:

Renegade Opera presents “Bird Songs of Opera” June 14, 15, and 27. More information and tickets are available right here.

See Emily Play

Once again composer and bassist and singer (and and and) esperanza spalding joins up with local musicians, this time Metropolitan Youth Symphony. Unquestionably the most successful musician to come from Oregon, spalding has stayed in touch with her roots here–most notably as co-director of Prismid, a sanctuary for BIPoC artists and cultural-workers in St. Johns.

For their 50th anniversary season, MYS commissioned a new work from spalding, Dispelling The Lie Of Lies for upright bass, voice, symphony, and jazz quintet. MYS–augmented by some 60 alumni, including spalding herself–will perform the new work on June 17 at The Schnitz on a program that also features spalding’s “Ebony & Ivy” (from her 2016 album Emily’s D+Evolution) plus music by Florence Price (Dances in the Canebrakes), James P. Johnson (Drums: A Symphonic Poem), and Wayne Shorter (Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair).

esperanza spalding joins Metropolitan Youth Symphony on June 17. More informations and tickets are available right here.

Playing small towns in Oregon forever

The first of our festivals already got rolling last week, with performances at Applegate Lake in Southern Oregon and Kah-Nee-Ta east of Mount Hood. Yes, we’re talking about In A Landscape, now celebrating ten years of Hunter Noack dragging a nine-foot Steinway piano out into various wilderness locations all over the Pacific Northwest to perform classical music against a backdrop of God’s Natural Splendour, in what must be the most satisfyingly absurd stunt we’ve ever heard of.

Last year – sorry, year before last, time gets fuzzy in the Late Anthropocene – OAW’s Senior Editor Brett Campbell interviewed Noack about his whatchamacallit. Here’s what the Steinway Troubadour had to say then:

The most meaningful part of this project would be a huge success if we just play small towns in Oregon forever. There’s enough people in a town of 50 to play in a community park to make it worthwhile. We’re all about finding places in communities that have a story and mean something. That doesn’t necessarily mean the most glorious natural spot. It could be a brownfield site the community has rallied behind and over several years turned into a playground. It brings a whole other meaning to the music when people have a relationship with a place and then they have an experience with this different soundtrack.

That’s the spirit! The audacity continues 6/16-18 at Black Butte Ranch in Sisters, Oregon (just outside of Bend) before moving on to Prineville (6/19) and Alvord Desert (6/21) and then moving off into the Idaho Territory (starting with Ketchum, where Hemingway died). Noack and his Steinway will be back in Oregon next month, at Portland’s Rose Garden Amphitheatre, before once again going aroving (Orcas Island on July 16-17, et alia). The journey continues all summer long, ending finally on September 21–the Fall Equinox–in the hilly, semi-wild exurban zone that is Southwest Portland’s Lewis & Clark College.

In A Landscape happens all over the Pacific Northwest through September. More information, complete schedule, and tickets are available right here.

“We spared no expense”

Technically the Britt Music & Arts Festival in Jacksonville (the heart of Southern Oregon) starts with a free Neighborhood Kick-Off Party on June 6 (“The Hill is Where the Heart Is,” featuring Californian singer Miko Marks and Rogue Valley bluegrass sextet 33 String Drive), followed by Yacht Rock Revue on June 8 (that’s exactly what it sounds like)–but for our purposes the festival starts in earnest on June 12 & 13, when the Britt Fest Orchestra will perform the iconic John Williams score for Jurassic Park (you got it stuck in your head immediately, didn’t you?) live-to-film under the baton of guest conductor Damon Gumpton.

Thus begins an eight-concert run of guest conductors with the BFO. Chia-Hsuan Lin follows, with concerts on the 15th (Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major with Clayton Stephenson, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances) and the 18th (Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D major with William Hagen, Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor aka “Beethoven’s Tenth”). Next up is Roberto Kalb on the 21st (Gabriela Lena Frank’s Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra, Brahms’ Double Concerto for Violin & Violoncello in A minor with Tessa Lark and Wei Yu, and Beethoven’s Seventh) and on the 23rd (a variety of good stuff, culminating in Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7 in C Major). The run concludes with Norman Huynh, familiar to Portland symphony audiences from his concerts with the Oregon Symphony. Those are on the 26th (Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor with Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration) and the 28th (Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D with Simone Porter), plus Bartók, Copland, and Ravel).

Just to whet your appetite, here’s Izik-Dzurko playing Rachmaninoff in 2017:

Britt continues through mid-September, with this year’s lineup featuring something for everyone: Earth Wind & Fire (June 24), California Honeydrops (July 8), Regina Spektor (July 24), Mariachi Sol de México de José Hernández (August 16), Gin Blossoms (August 25), Chicago (September 2), Thievery Corporation (September 7), Hermanos Gutiérrez (September 18)–you get the idea. Britt also hosts a wagonload of kids’ concerts and summer workshops, even a Rock Camp (July 7-11).

More information–including complete festival lineup, directions to the beautiful outdoor Britt Pavilion in Jacksonville, and tickets–are available right here.

Bach to Basicks

Yes, yes, Bach/Back jokes are a dime a dozen. “I’ll be Bach,” “Bach to the Future,” “I’ve got your Bach,” “it’s payBach time,” “SuperBach Sunday,” “you scratch my Bach and I’ll scratch yours,” “satisfaction guaranteed or your money Bach,” and so on ad infinitum. Anyways, Oregon Bach Festival is Bach on track this season after a few seasons of programming (in the opinion of some long-time OBF fans) all too little of its namesake’s music. Now, with artistic partners Jos van Veldhoven and Craig Hella Johnson at the helm, OBF is getting Bach to the basicks.

But it wouldn’t be OBF if there wasn’t a whole lot of newer music connected to or inspired in some way by the Great Man. This year that stretches from predecessors like Palestrina through a long line of successors that continues to the present day: Beethoven, Orff, Craig Hella Johnson, Caroline Shaw, and so on ad infinitum.

Here’s a not-quite-complete list of just the Bach-breaking concerts on the agenda in Eugene this year:

June 28: Bach to Bach concerts of the complete Brandenburg Concertos, interspersed with newer works by two American composers, split up like this: three Brandenburgs each plus one new work. Part one, at 2:30 pm, places Caroline Shaw’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings alongside Brandenburgs 1, 2, and 6 (stay tuned for our upcoming interview with Shaw); part two, at 6:30 pm, features Gabriella Smith’s Brandenburg Interstices between Brandenburgs 3, 4, and 5.

June 30: Bach Talk with Jos van Veldhoven, 10 am at Aasen-Hull Hall. The Dutch conductor comes with impressive credentials: he was artistic director of the Netherlands Bach Society for over three decades, and has recorded massive amounts of the Great Man’s music, much of it within the context of the audacious series “All of Bach.”

July 2: Palestrina in the Park, 6:30 pm at Mount Pisgah Arboretum in Eugene. This one’s mostly about the great Counter-Reformation composer, but also features Shunske Sato (van Veldhoven’s successor at NBS) performing “a transformative reimagining of J.S. Bach’s Chaconne.” This is the work that violinist Joshua Bell called “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history.” 

Brahms said of it, “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”

Here’s Sato playing the whole Violin Partita no. 2 in D minor BWV 1004 (of which the “Chaconne” is the final movement) in 2019:

July 3 & 5: Mass in B Minor, 7:30 pm on the 3rd at Beall Hall in Eugene, 2:30 pm on the 5th at Mount Angel Abbey in Benedict. It doesn’t get more Bach than the Mass in B minor, one of his final completed works. If the unthinkable happens and you find yourself fleeing the planet on a spaceship with kindly-but-firm alien rescuers who allow you to bring one piece of Terran music along, you’ll just have to bite the bullet and take this one.

Let’s hear what Albert Schweitzer had to say on the subject:

The salient quality of the B minor Mass is its wonderful sublimity. The first chord of the “Kyrie”  takes us into the world of great and profound emotions; we do not leave it until the final cadence of the “Dona Nobis Pacem.” It is as if Bach had here tried to write a really Catholic Mass; he endeavours to present faith under its larger and more objective aspects. Some of the splendid and brilliant chief choruses have quite a “Catholic” tinge. Yet in the other movements we get the same subjective, intimate spirit as in the cantatas, which we may regard as the Protestant element in Bach’s religion. The sublime and the intimate do not interpenetrate; they co-exist side by side; they are separable from each other like the objective and the subjective in Bach’s piety; and so the B minor Mass is at once Catholic and Protestant, and in addition as enigmatic and unfathomable as the religious consciousness of its creator.

July 6: Fauré’s Requiem, 2:30 pm at Beall. The Bach connection here comes via composer Oswald Huỳnh’s Prelude to Stars in Their Massive Dying, the second installment of OBF’s “New Transcriptions” project. The first of these “new transcriptions” was Damien Geter’s Prelude and Fugue (and Riffs, too)–read all about that right here in Angela Allen’s report from last year.

July 7: The Art of Fugue with Paul Jacobs, 7:30 pm at Central Lutheran Church in Eugene. So when those aliens come to whisk you away from the dying Earth, if they let you have two scores this is the other one you should grab. Bonus points for hosting the concert in a Lutheran church, and extra bonus points for mighty organist Paul Jacobs (you can read more about him in Allen’s report above, and also in her more recent review of Jacobs from earlier this year). This is a guy who memorizes Bach for fun, performs 18 hours’ worth in one sitting, that sort of thing. His technique is terrific and so is his tone–no mean feat when you literally can’t travel with your own instrument, but have to rely on the venue’s (pianists deal with this too but there’s a lot less variation amongst pianos than there is amongst organs).

Here’s Jacobs playing the “Little” Fugue in G minor in 2023:

July 8: Markus Passion, 7:30 pm at Soreng Theater in Eugene. It just wouldn’t be OBF if there weren’t some commissioned reconstruction of a historical whatever. In this case it’s Bach’s third Passion, based on the Gospel According to Matthew (joining his famous Matthew and John Passions, and no we don’t know what he had against Luke). You can get the background in the pre-concert talk at 6:30 with harpsichordist and conductor Julian Perkins of Portland Baroque Orchestra fame (read Daryl Browne’s pre-Messiah interview right here). Also of note in this production: In addition to the four vocal soloists (including bass-baritone Jonathan Woody, also of PBO fame) there will be a narrator, and that narrator is Joseph Marcell. Nineties kids and other hipsters know Marcell as Geoffrey Butler, the Banks family butler on the timeless sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

You can read more about this one (and OBF’s other choral offerings) in Daryl Browne’s recent column right here.

July 12: Passion for Bach and Coltrane, 7:30 pm at Soreng Theater in Eugene. It’s always nice to get a chance to hear a new work a second time. We take that for granted in the pop-rock world, where bands play some version of the same set of songs over and over again throughout their career. But in the classical realm–well, we have somewhat grown out of the old joke “world premiere = last performance” (thanks in part to co-commissioning consortiums and other types of collaborations, and the efforts of folks like CMNW and OBF), but it’s still a treat.

We Oregonians had the privilege of hearing Imani Winds’ original hornist Jeff Scott’s tribute to the Two Great Johns several years ago at CMNW 2018 (read all about that here and here), and now it’s back–with almost the exact same lineup. The Imani chairs have shifted somewhat (Kevin Newton’s sitting in Scott’s horn seat, and Brandon Patrick George replaced founder Valerie Coleman on flute) but, Ship of Theseus style, it’s the same band. And the rest is exactly the same: Harlem Quartet, orator A.B. Spellman, even the same rhythm section (pianist Alex Brown, bassist Edward Perez, drummer Neal Smith).

This is also the exact lineup that won last year’s Grammy for “Best Classical Compendium” for their recording of this work of genius. Listen to that right here:

That morning at 10 am, Spellman will be down at Tsunami Books in Eugene for “a morning of poetry readings and discussion about his life, work, and involvement in the Grammy-winning Passion for Bach and Coltrane project with Imani Winds.”

July 13: Carmina Burana, 2:30 pm at Silva Concert Hall. OBF closes with a bang in this partnership with Eugene Ballet. Also on this program is your last taste of Bach: Rahel Rilling (yes, daughter of OBF co-founder Helmuth Rilling) teams up with San Francisco Symphony first violinist Suzanne Leon and Oregon Symphony concertmaster Sarah Kwak for the Concerto for Three Violins. This is a funny one, in that it was either based on one of Bach’s concerti for three harpsichords, or the other way around. Either way, it’s glorious stuff and a fitting end to this year’s fest.

More information about Oregon Bach Festival, including complete calendar of events and tickets to everything, is available right here.

CMNW’s Echoes of Bach

Meanwhile, Chamber Music Northwest is also on the Bach train, with this year’s festival bearing the title “Echoes of Bach.” This is immediately borne out by their concerts presented in partnership with OBF: The Brandenburgs with Shaw and with Smith on the 28th, the Mass in B minor on July 6.

They’re also doing their own variety of new stuff and newer old stuff. Four highlights of every year’s CMNW are the series of New@Night concerts (formerly New@Noon, which was fun in its way but was kinda hell on the schedule), the Young Artist Institute showcases, the chamber parties, and the wide variety of masterclasses and open rehearsals. And whereas OBF only stretches across two weeks or so, CMNW runs for five whole weeks. You can really get lost in it. You can start a CMNW as one kind of person and end up another kind of person. It’s a summer camp for Oregon classical music lovers.

We’ll talk more about CMNW in July. For now, here are some particular highlights of the first part of this year’s festival:

Young Artist Institute showcases (all free except the fundraiser chamber party):

• June 20 at The Old Church;
• a chamber party with the YAI faculty at “a private home in Eastmoreland” on June 21;
• June 27 at First Congregational United Church of Christ;
• June 29 at Kaul Auditorium;
• an outdoor community concert on the SoundsTruck NW mobile stage (at University of Portland’s Shipstad Field) on July 3;
• and the finale concert (also at Kaul) on July 5.

Kit Armstrong performs Caroline Shaw’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings and that daunting harpsichord part from Brandenburg 5 on June 28; the “Trio Sonata” from The Musical Offering (with violinist Shunske Sato and flutist Emi Ferguson) as part of “Brandenburg All-Stars” on the 30th; and Bach’s Goldberg Variations on July 1. Also on that All-Stars concert: Fleur Barron singing the hell out of Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, in the composer’s preferred chamber orchestra setting, and CMNW artistic co-director Soovin Kim leading a select crew of string players through Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 18.

Mahler and Mendelssohn are, of course, two of the ten thousand composers directly downstream from Johann Sebastian Bach. And you surely remember Barron from prior CMNW summer camps (read Alice Hardesty’s interview from 2023 right here).

Titus Underwood presents an oboe masterclass at noon on June 30, after joining the corps of oboists for the first two Brandenburgs on June 28. Later that week, at the first New@Night on July 2 at The Old Church, he’ll play Julia Adolphe’s “Paw, Plume, Prowl for Solo Oboe” and Thea Musgrave’s “Impromptu No. 1 for Flute and Oboe” (with Ferguson).

Barron and Armstrong are still in town for this one too. Armstrong’s on piano this time, performing his own compositions “Fantasy on B-A-C-H for Solo Piano” and “Revêtments for Piano Trio.” Barron will sing works by three composers from around the world (hence this concert’s title, “Global Voices”): Arvo Pärt’s “Es sang vor langen Jahren,” Kai-Young Chan’s “Hard it is to Meet and Part,” and 2023 CMNW Protégé composer Kian Ravaei’s “I Will Greet the Sun Again.” (Read Angela Allen’s profile on Ravaei at CMNW 2023 right here.)

Well-tempered

We end back at the end of the month, with Makrokosmos Project XI. This lot is also going Bach crazy this year! Founding duo Saar Ahuvia and Stephanie Ho will be joined by their usual piano co-conspirators–Monica Ohuchi, Yoko Greeney, Asya Gulua, Alexander Schwarzkopf, and Susan Smith–to perform Johann Sebastian’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier (Book I) as well as the complete etudes of another of Bach’s heirs, Philip Glass.

Now, Glass played on the piano is an easy one. The man’s a pianist, he wrote these etudes for piano, done and done. Bach on the piano, though–well, it’s a good thing these seven are such excellent pianists, and that Makrokosmos Project has always excelled at these “hey let’s just play all of this in one sitting and bliss out” type affairs.

What would be really smashing, though, is if they hauled in a couple of clavichords or harpsichords or whatever and went old school with it. According to the records, Bach himself wasn’t particularly pleased with the newly-invented “fortepiano”–though obviously he wouldn’t have heard anything like the modern instrument DUO Saar & Stephanie and company will be playing at BodyVox this month. And there’s the legend that the notorious Musical Offering theme was first presented and worked out on one of Frederick the Great’s fortepianos. So there’s that.

Further complicating matters is that presumably these pianos will be tuned in equal temperament, same as everybody else’s. There’s considerable debate about Bach’s actual tuning methods, but there’s little doubt that “well-tempered” did not mean “equal-tempered.” In fact, it seems to mean specifically not that. But it also specifically does not mean meantone tuning, or just intonation, or whatever, because performing music in all twenty-four major and minor keys–the overt purpose of this of this cycle of preludes and fugues–is simply impossible in the sorts of pure tunings generally favored by string players and persnickety people like Lou Harrison and Harry Partch. Sit and do the math yourself for a couple hours, you’ll see it too.

At any rate, one of the beautiful things about Bach’s music–and one of the reasons it stands at the apex of what we broadly call “classical music”–is its transferable universality. People have been playing around with Bach’s stuff since it was written. You can play it with a large Romantic orchestra, like Stokowski. You can arrange it for jazz choir, like the Swingle Singers. You can play it on harp, or electric guitar, or banjo, or synthesizers, or sitars, or steel pans, or tuned flower pots, or whatever you want. It even makes tolerably good EDM, with a good enough DJ behind the decks. We’re still waiting for a decent heavy metal band to properly take up the challenge.

The point is that you can reconfigure the instrumentation of Bach’s music ad libitum, ad infinitum, and it all still sounds good. It can’t not sound good. That’s what makes it immortal.

Also on the program are Arvo Pärt’s Hymn to A Great City and the world premiere of a Makrokosmos Project commission–commissioned from an Oregon composer, no less! Bonnie Miksch–well known for her album with Fear No Music Somewhere I Have Never Traveled and recently retired from her directorship of the PSU School of Music & Dance–composed her two-piano work Lament for the Levant just for Makro XI. The MP folks characterize it as “a heartfelt tribute to the suffering of all people and nations involved in the current Middle East conflict.”

Makrokosmos Project XI starts with happy hour at 4:30 on Friday, June 27 at the BodyVox theater on Northwest 17th. More information and tickets available here.