MUSIC
BY BRETT CAMPBELL
HOT OPERA
PORTLAND OPERA MEZZO-SOPRANO HANNAH PENN
(PICTURED HERE IN LA TRAVIATA) STARS IN EUGENE
OPERA’S LITTLE WOMEN
Little Women, big sounds and more
May music
O
pera is hot in America these days. Despite the
hidebound programming of most major opera
companies endlessly recycling the tired old “top
10” 19th- and early 20th-century warhorses,
today’s American composers are writing dozens
of new operas — many based on American themes — and
finding audiences both young and old.
One of the leading American opera voices, composer
Mark Adamo, scored a hit in 1998 with his operatic
adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel Little
Women, which Eugene Opera is staging May 14-15 at the
Hult Center’s Soreng Theater.
His sometimes melancholy score (lush and lovely
enough for a movie soundtrack, yet occasionally and
appropriately spiced with modern harmonies) enticingly
evokes the themes — love, envy, sibling conflict,
disillusionment, poverty, the conflicts of adolescence,
death, the inevitability of change and more — that make
this ever-relevant story of young girls coming-of-age so
much more than a kids’ story. With a cast of stalwart
Oregon opera veterans (such as the excellent Portland
Opera mezzo-soprano Hannah Penn and Eugene’s own
sturdy baritone Sandy Naishtat to accomplished and
emerging younger voices), it’s a fine, forward-looking
finish to Eugene Opera’s season.
The Eugene Symphony has also been looking forward
instead of merely resting on its considerable laurels
during this 50th anniversary season, which concludes May
12 at the Hult with not only Beethoven’s ever-exhilarating
Symphony No. 9, but also a brand-new piano concerto
commissioned by the orchestra from one America’s finest
composers, Eugene’s own Robert Kyr.
The regional old-time scene is
going to have one big hearth to gather
round May 5-8: the inaugural
Willamette Valley Old-Time Social
put on by Eugene’s Mud City Old-Time
Society. For the uninitiated, old-time
music is an acoustic
tradition of American music.
Fiddle and banjo are the
stars, making the sound a
perfect catalyst for square
MUSIC NEWS & dancing.
And old-time is not blue-
NOTES FROM
grass;
it gave birth to blue-
DOWN IN THE
grass.
Old-time focuses on
WILLAMETTE
community
and participa-
VALLEY
tion, regardless of skill
level, more than performance.
“Old-time is different. You don’t have to be
super good to be able to play, but it also invites
experts,” says Brandon Olszewski, one of the
volunteer event organizers. “We want to bring
new people into the community.”
Olszewski says that while many of the
elders in the community play together
consistently, the younger old-time players are
scattered. “There’s all these young people in
the community playing traditional music, but
we rarely play together,” he says. “Why can’t
we get these people together maybe more consistently?”
And thus the Willamette Valley Old-Time Social was
born. The old-time scene has proven so fertile up and
down the West Coast, Olszewski says, because it’s
spotted with fountainheads of the genre.
There are “people who have been playing these
instruments for 30, 40, 50 years and the opportunity to
B BACK B
BEAT
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May 5, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
Kyr’s Dawning of the World, featuring his University
of Oregon faculty colleague Alexandre Dossin, celebrates
both Oregon’s natural beauty and the emergence of the
kind of multicultural global-fusion music that Kyr himself
helped pioneer over the course of his acclaimed career.
There’s more American orchestral music (by Leonard
Bernstein, John Williams, Frank Ticheli and more) in the
Eugene Symphonic Band’s April 16 concert at First
Baptist Church (3550 Fox Meadow).
And Dossin joins other UO faculty colleagues in a
play with those people …” Olszewski trails off. He ticks
off names like the Eugene-based Sam Jones and Bob
Marquis, who studied with Appalachian fiddle and old-
time master Tommy Jarrell, and Portland’s late King
Bubba (né Bill Martin), a legend in West Coast old-time
culture.
showcase concert May 7 at the UO’s Beall Concert Hall
featuring music by Brahms, Aram Khachaturian and a
premiere by UO alumni Evan Paul.
Speaking of global music, the UO’s Future Music
Oregon features Chinese electroacoustic music pioneer
Xiaofu Zhang at the UO’s Thelma Schnitzer Hall May
14. Saxophone master Otis Murphy and pianist Haruko
Murphy play American songbook standards by the great
composer Jerome Kern and more May 16 at Beall.
Early music fans have a couple of treats this month. On
May 7, Byrdsong Consort performs Baroque music from
the British Isles, France, Italy and Germany on period
instruments at Unitarian Universalist Church (1685 W.
13th Ave.).
On May 15, Oregon Bach Collegium, featuring
Ashland guitarist James Bishop-Edwards, soprano
Heather Holmquest and fortepianist Margret Gries,
gives the historically informed treatment to the sumptuous
early Romantic songs of the great melodist Franz Schubert
at United Lutheran Church (2230 Washington St.).
The spring flowering of music at The Shedd continues
with the great Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band’s
incendiary mix of Caribbean and South American
rhythms and soul on May 12. The next evening, the
sizzling guitar duo of jazz great Frank Vignola and
Vinny Raniolo play everything from Bach and Mozart to
Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa, along with classic and
original gypsy jazz.
On May 17, Cajun music scholar and performer
Michael Doucet brings back one of America’s most
valuable bands, the Cajun revivalists of Louisiana’s
BeauSoleil, for the latest in its long and distinguished
string of Shedd appearances. The band keeps the music
fresh by incorporating rock, jazz, zydeco, country and
blues while keeping it danceable and delightful.
And you can catch another appealing roots music
show, a bluegrass celebration featuring dobro master Rob
Ickes (formerly of Blue Highway) and singer-guitarist
Trey Hensley, on May 16 Tsunami Books. ■
workshops on everything from clogging to clawhammer
banjo.
While the social runs Thursday — kicking off with a
free concert by Dirty Spoon, Breakers Yard and South
Hills String Band 7 pm at First National Taphouse —
through Sunday, the main showcase is noon to midnight
Saturday, May 7, at The Vet’s Club (1626
Willamette), capped off with the biggest
square dance of the weekend.
“Bring your instruments,” Olszewski says.
“You can hang out and jam with everybody.”
Visit mudcityoldtime.org/thesocial for
details and tickets; $10-$35.
The valley is ever-so-popular this weekend
as the Willamette Valley Music Festival
returns to the University of Oregon campus
noon to midnight, Saturday, May 7; free. Look
for the jazzy Seattle songbird Katie Kuffel,
local favorites Medium Troy and The
Bohemian Dub Orchestra, Eugene hip-hop
group The Nouns (who won Ethos’ latest
Bandest of the Bands competition) and do
WOW HALL HOSTS A WILLAMETTE VALLEY
not miss the shining hip hop of Sol. See wvmf.
OLD-TIME SOCIAL SQUARE DANCE MAY 6
uoregon.edu for schedule.
AND ITS ANNUAL WOODMEN OF THE WORLD
The annual historic Woodmen of the World
HISTORIC EXHIBIT FOR FIRST FRIDAY
ARTWALK AND THROUGHOUT MAY
exhibit is up and running for the month of May
at WOW Hall, featuring photos (one pictured
here), posters and signs from the beloved
Jones and Marquis will be playing the social along
venue’s history. WOW Hall is also hosting its annual
with a slew of other bands and musicians from all over
membership meeting 7 pm Wednesday, May 11, with a
the West: Squirrel Butter (who appeared on A Prairie
preceding social at 6:30 pm, for members to, among
Home Companion last summer), Yodelady, Hokum
other things, elect positions to the board of directors;
Hi-Flyers, John Hatton, The Eugene City Barnstormers,
free and open to the public, but only Community Center
Amy Hofer, The Bow Weevils and many more. The event
for the Performing Arts WOW Hall members can vote.
is also packed with open jams, square dances and
Rumor has it there’s going to be a shake up.