We Oregonians can’t wait to for summer, and then when it gets here, we kvetch — the heat! The smoke! The kids underfoot! Not enough concerts! Wait, that hasn’t been true for awhile. But school’s back, for some, the heat wave is broken, the smoke is starting to recede (digits intertwined), and both classical music and liquid refreshment is on the way!
Not rain, mind you, but Bridgetown Orchestra’s On Being Water, which runs Friday and Saturday at the Vault Theater in Hillsboro. (Note: Thursday’s performance has been canceled due to a tech fail. Such is the price of making art on the bleeding edge.) It’s the latest multimedia project by composer/wannabe astronaut/theater artist and Bridgetown Artistic Director Tylor Neist, whom you remember from 2016’s ambitious The Overview Effect, which sent audiences on a musical/theatrical journey through inner and outer space.
This time, Neist splashes down at Hillsboro’s new black box theater space, and takes advantage of its state of the art lighting and other tech. In exploring society’s mythic relationship to H2O,
On Being Water immerses the audience in imagery and his original music for live string quartet, which, according to his press release, “resonate[s] through 32 speakers dispersed over 4 floor-to-ceiling projection surfaces, creating a dynamic, 3-D sound spatialization [as] he manipulates the individual string lines on multiple axes in real time for total control, making possible all kinds of extraordinary ‘sound bath’ effects, such as sunrises and sunsets of music.”
As with Overview, Water features visual design by Benjamin Read, creative director at Redhaus Design. Stay tuned for Matthew Andrews’s ArtsWatch review.
Meanwhile, you can read his ArtsWatch review/preview of Friday’s Oregon Symphony reprise performance and recording of Gabriel Kahane’s Emergency Shelter Intake Form.
Speaking of the OSO, the next day, the orchestra moves the annual unofficial opening of Portland’s classical music season to the Oregon Zoo. Nevertheless, Oregon Symphony at the Zoo keeps the popular format, including Greatest Classical Hits by Richard Wagner, Bizet (Carmen) Gershwin (An American in Paris) and more, including the over-the-top finale, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture — but with bass drums replacing the usual howitzers. No wants an elephant stampede. And no, Carnival of the Animals isn’t on the program.
In a Landscape, Portland pianist Hunter Noack’s itinerant show that takes his classical and contemporary music performances to some of the Northwest’s most beautiful spaces, alights upon Lewis & Clark Timberlands above Cannon Beach Saturday, then Hillsboro’s Orenco Woods Nature Park Sunday, Stoller Family Estate Monday, and Smith Rock State Park next Wednesday.
You’ll be reading more about Lincoln City’s revitalized Cultural Center here soon, but for now, check out Thursday’s performance with Portland pianist Kerry Politzer’s Bossa PDX, which jazzifies Brazilian beats for her crack combo with guitarist Chris Woitach, bassist Damian Erskine, and (this time) drummer George Colligan.
On Sunday at Portland’s Jack London Review (and the following week at Sisters Folk Festival), award-winning band Kahulanui plays contemporary Hawaiian swing, a pre World War II vintage blend of Hawaiian traditional song and danceable American jazz. Aloha!
Wait, is it over so soon?! We must have left something out. I blame the heat. Please let us know what we missed in the comments section below.
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Want to learn more about contemporary Oregon classical music? Check out Oregon ComposersWatch.
