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Wednesday, January 22, 2020
GO! magazine — A&E in Northeast Oregon
QUICK TAKES
BlueMountaineers play
at Saturday’s community
dance
a brief look at what’s happening
in northeast oregon
Elwood stops in Baker City
LA GRANDE — A dance with
music by The BlueMountaineers
starts at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 25 at the
Union County Senior Center, 1504
N. Albany St., La Grande. The
evening includes a finger-food pot-
luck, door prizes and George Neer’s
“famous” homemade ice cream. All
ages welcome. Admission is $3 at
the door (younger than 12 are free).
Learn the art of Celtic
knots Feb. 6
BAKER CITY — Ginger Rem-
bold will teach “Celtic Knots —
Circle Designs” from 6-8 p.m. Feb. 6
at Crossroads Carnegie Art Center,
2020 Auburn Ave., Baker City.
Students will learn to create
Celtic knotwork circle designs us-
ing grids and dots as a guide. The
process taught in this class may be
used to make personalized cards
and posters or as a meditative
practice.
Cost is $10 members or $15 for
nonmembers. The class is open to
age 12 through adult. To register,
call 541-523-5369, stop by the
center, or go to www.crossroads-
arts.org.
Register early for Josephy
Center beading workshop
JOSEPH — Roger Amerman
will lead a workshop on Plateau-
style beading Feb. 7-9 at the Jose-
phy Center for Arts and Culture,
403 N. Main St., Joseph.
The three-day, 14-hour work-
shop is limited to eight students
on a first come, first served basis.
Workshop participants will learn
“contour” and “lane” bead stitch-
ing and create a beaded neck bag.
Beginners as well as experienced
bead-workers are welcome. The
cost is $100 per student, plus mate-
rials (approximately $25).
Amerman is an enrolled citizen
of the Choctaw Nation of Okla-
homa and an accomplished artist
whose work has been featured
throughout the United States,
Lefty’s Taphouse welcomes Elwood to Baker City Friday.
including the Smithsonian Institu-
tion in Washington, D.C.
He has developed strong ties
with Umatilla, Yakama and Nez
Perce communities and has writ-
ten, lectured and taught across
the West. He resides on his wife’s
reservation, the Nez Perce Reserva-
tion of Idaho.
To register or for more informa-
tion, go to www.josephy.org or call
541-432-0505.
Elwood performs at
Lefty’s Friday
BAKER CITY — Elwood will
play at Lefty’s Taphouse, 1934
Broadway St., Baker City, at 7 p.m.
Jan. 24 during his winter tour of
Oregon and California.
The bio on his website — www.
elwood-music.com — describes his
music like this: “What is it that
moves your soul? For Elwood it has
always been the ever awe inspir-
ing serenity and shear power of
Mother Nature and you can feel it
in his music.”
WEEKEND OUTLOOK
Baker Community
Orchestra begins
rehearsals
BAKER CITY — The Baker
Community Orchestra will begin
its winter/spring 2020 season Jan.
23 with registration at 6:30 p.m.
and its first rehearsal at 7 p.m. in
the Baker High School band room.
Rehearsals will continue weekly
on Thursdays from 7-8:30 p.m. The
season will conclude with a concert
in early April.
The group is open to anyone who
plays a band or orchestra instru-
ment. There is no audition require-
ment, nor any charge to play. There
are a few loaner instruments
available. For more information,
call Brian Watt at 541-523-4662 or
email bandswatt1@gmail.com.
Unique chamber series
concert tells story
through song
LA GRANDE — The Grande
Ronde Symphony Association
kicks off the decade with a unique
chamber series concert featur-
ing musical selections from Tony
award-winning composer and
lyricist Jason Robert Brown’s “The
Last Five Years.”
Soprano Renee Wells and tenor
Devin Frasier will entertain the
audience in an intimate home
setting Jan. 25 at 307 C Ave. in La
Grande. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
and the performance begins at 7
p.m. Refreshments will be offered
following the concert.
Wells and Frasier will they take
on the roles of a married couple
dealing with the circumstances of
life. Selections will share an emo-
tional musical journey about two
New Yorkers in their 20s who fall
in and out of love over the course of
five years.
“This will be an unprecedented
opportunity to hear pieces from
a modern Broadway play (per-
formed) by two of our region’s most
well-known vocal artists,” GRSA’s
president, Alice Trindle, said in a
press release. “The Chamber Series
was created for this type of presen-
tation, so that local residents can
experience music in small-space
settings, while being exposed to
exceptional quality performances.”
Chamber series season ticket
passes for the remaining four per-
formances may be purchased for
$100 per person through the GRSA
at P.O. Box 824, La Grande 97850,
or at www.granderondesymphony.
org. Single tickets may be pur-
chased at the door for $25 each.
ments of the Arts.
Otsuka tells the story of a
Japanese family uprooted from its
Berkeley, California, home after the
start of World War II and forcibly
relocated to an internment camp.
They spend two harrowing years
there before returning to a home
far less welcoming than it was
before the war.
Using five distinct but inter-
twined perspectives, Otsuka’s
graceful prose evokes the family’s
range of responses to internment.
The novel serves as a requiem for
moral and civic decency in times of
strife and fragmentation.
According to the NEA’s website,
Otsuka draws on both research
and personal family experience,
as well as her background as a vi-
sual artist, to craft this crystalline,
semi-autobiographical debut novel,
winner of the American Library
Association’s Alex Award and the
Asian American Literary Award.
Organized by Wallowa County’s
Fishtrap and La Grande’s Art
Center East, five weeks of spe-
cial events and book discussions
throughout Wallowa and Union
counties kick off Feb. 19. Check
www.fishtrap.org and www.artcen-
tereast.org for updates on local Big
Read events.
Get reading — the Big
Read kicks off Feb. 19
NORTHEAST OREGON —
Residents of Wallowa and Union
counties are encouraged to get
reading in preparation for the 2020
Big Read featuring “When the Em-
peror Was Divine” by Julie Otsuka.
The Big Read is a nation-wide
initiative of the National Endow-
FRIDAY
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