The Passion
and The
(Joe) Powers
A TANGO QUINTET JOINS THE
BACH FESTIVAL STAGE
A
ny Oregon Bach Festival audience
member could list the instruments
she expects to see on the stage at
Silva or Soreng or Beall — strings,
of course, and the piano, some
brass, woodwinds, percussion,
maybe a triangle, if we’re
stretching things, or a xylophone or glockenspiel. But this
year, one more instrument joins the ranks: the harmonica,
wielded with consummate skill by a local boy who has
made it through his devotion to tango.
That’s right: tango harmonica. Joe Powers, who majored
in music composition at the UO, returns to Eugene July
13 with his Tango Quintet in the middle of a barnstorming
four-city Oregon Bach Festival tour (putting the “Oregon”
part into the OBF, as executive director John Evans likes
to point out).
No one can blame Powers for falling in love with the
tango — or the harmonica. He started playing the free-reed
instrument at age 2 after someone gave it to him as a gift
(and after his parents somehow did not take it away and
“lose” it in a park), but it took him a little longer to fall for
the dance that originated in brothels at the edge of towns
in Argentina.
In Powers’ senior year, he decided he was going to learn
Spanish, so after he graduated, he moved to Buenos Aires.
“I stayed for a year and a half, dancing every day,” he says.
One day, a friend in Buenos Aires introduced him to the
music of Hugo Díaz, a (relatively) famous Argentinian
tango harmonica player. Powers was captivated.
“OBF CINEMA”
PRESENTS
THE AWARD
WINNING FILMS
THIRTY TWO
SHORT FILMS
ABOUT GLENN
GOULD AND
THE GENIUS
WITHIN DAILY
JULY 7-13 AT
THE BIJOU ART
CINEMAS.
JOE POWERS
WIELDS HIS
HARMONICA
“I became very inspired, went back to Portland and
formed a band,” Powers says. “One thing led to another, and
we started traveling overseas.” With or without his quintet,
Powers has performed in countries all over the world —
because, he says, “there’s a tango club in every big city.”
Tango, which started out rough around the edges as
the dance of prostitutes and their johns at the brothels, got
picked up as a craze by Parisians — and, Powers says, the
Argentinian and Uruguayan elites, who originally hated
the idea of the dance, soon found themselves wanting to
emulate the Parisians. That’s how the dance, and the music,
became more formalized and more dignifi ed in the 1970s
— at least as far as a dance that’s clearly about foreplay can
be bound by rules and noble aspirations.
This means it’s not actually so odd for the Oregon
Bach Festival to host tango, especially in a year called
“The Power and the Passion.” Powers asked Argentine
classical pianist Octavio Brunetti and Argentine guitarist
Guillermo García (who happens to hold a doctorate in
electrical engineering from Stanford as well as being a
world-class musician) to join him and two other musicians
for the Bach Fest.
“I’ve always held the Bach Festival in high regard,”
Powers says. He says that he looks forward to bringing
the music, and the dance (most of the musicians are also
dancers — and they won’t be alone up on that stage) to
Portland on Wednesday, July 11; Bend on Thursday, July
12; Eugene on Friday, July 13 and Ashland on Saturday,
July 14.
Powers promises that it’s not only his harmonica that
may give the audience a frisson of pleasure. “There will
be,” he says, “fun surprises.” — Suzi Steffen
Guy & Nadina: Carnets
de Voyage, 7:30pm, Beall
Hall, UO, $15-$45
Matthew Halls: Bach
keyboard concerti,
7:30pm, Beall Hall, UO,
$15-$45
Discovery Series: Bach
St. Matthew Passion Part
3, 4:30pm, Hult Center,
$10/$15
TUESDAY 7/10
Inside Line: Stephen
Rodgers, intro to Debussy
Soiree, 6:30pm, SOMD
163, UO
THURSDAY 7/5
Let’s Talk: John Scott,
noon, Hult Center, FREE
Discovery Series: Bach
St. Matthew Passion Part
2, 4:30pm, Hult Center;
$10/$15
Ya-Fei Chuang piano
recital, 7:30pm, Beall Hall,
UO, $15-$45
OBF Cinema: 32 Short
Films About Glenn Gould,
4pm, through July 13,
Bijou Art Cinema
OBF Cinema: Genius
Within — The Inner Life
of Glenn Gould, 4pm
through July 13, Bijou Art
Cinema
Inside Line: Linda
Hathaway Bunza, intro
to A Child of our Time,
6:30pm, Hult Center,
FREE
A Child of Our Time,
7:30pm, Hult Center, $15-
$62
FRIDAY 7/6
On the House: SFYCA
Soloists, 1pm, Hult Center
Lobby, FREE
John Scott: Bach organ
recital, 7:30pm, Central
Lutheran Church, $10/$25
SUNDAY 7/8
Stangeland Family Youth
Choral Academy, 7:30pm,
Hult Center,
MONDAY 7/9
SATURDAY 7/7
OBF Kids: Buzz & Crow,
10am, Hult Center, $5
Let’s Talk: Anton
Armstrong, noon, Hult
Center, FREE
On the House:
Boeckman/Linsenberg
Recorder Duo, 1pm, Hult
Center, FREE
Debussy Soiree, 7:30pm,
Beall Hall, UO, $15-$45
HELMUTH RILLING,
OBF ARTISTIC
DIRECTOR AND
CONDUCTOR,
LEADS ALL-
MENDELSSOHN
WITH JOSHUA
BELL JUNE 29-30;
A PROGRAM OF
BACH MOTETS
AND CONCERTI
IN BEALL HALL
JULY 11; AND THE
ST. MATTHEW
PASSION IN
LECTURE
CONCERTS JULY 3,
5,10,12, AND FULL
PERFORMANCE
JULY15
PHOTO BY HOLGER SCHNEIDER
E U G E N E W E E K LY ’ S G U I D E T O O R E G O N B A C H F E S T I V A L 2 0 1 2
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