MUSIC
BY BRETT CAMPBELL
BREWS MEET MUSE
Party with Siri Vik, Eugene Symphony and plenty of food and drink at SymFest
B
eer and classical music enjoy a long and sto-
ried relationship, stretching back to those
monks who chanted holy praise by night and
brewed ales by day, through all those Austrian
and German composers who quaffed their way
through compositions, performances and post-concert
revelry — practices that I understand continue today.
On June 3 at the Hult Center, the Eugene Symphony
nurtures that happy relationship with its second-
annual SymFest. Starting 5:30 pm, the fest features
traditional bluegrass (Corwin Bolt and the Wingnuts),
Her Royal Slugness Eugenia Slimesworth, Mariachi del
Sol, Danceability International, food carts, locally made
kombucha, cider and, of course, malty, hoppy, bubbly
beverages brewed right here in River City.
At 7:30 pm the orchestra joins Eugene chanteuse Siri
Vik singing some of her specialties, the music of Edith
Piaf and Kurt Weill, and the energetic trio Time for
Three. Young Philadelphia Orchestra fiddlers Zachary
De Pue and Nicolas Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer
met in college at the celebrated Curtis Institute.
I’ve personally witnessed rock-concert rhythmic
clapping and cheering by teens and 20-somethings
at Time for Three shows. This time, they’ll play
music from Stravinsky’s gorgeous ballet score The
Firebird, mix Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 1
with their arrangements of The Verve’s “Bittersweet
Symphony” and Guns N’ Roses’ explosive “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” then sprinkle a bit of
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with tunes from Hamilton, Bernard Herrmann’s haunting
score from Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” The festival closes with a post-
concert dance party in the Hult lobby by DJ Foodstamp and a jazz lounge in Soreng Theater.
There’s more partying going on around the University of Oregon, where school’s almost
done. The Oregon Percussion Ensemble gives its end-
of-year concert June 1 at Aasen-Hull Hall. For choral
music fans, the Chamber Choir and University Singers
give their closing concert at Beall Hall June 2, which
hosts the Women’s Choir and Repertory Singers June
10 and the ever-popular Gospel Choirs June 11.
Beall hosts the big free Chamber Music on Campus
concert June 6. Band music fans have the annual Green
Garter band show to look forward to June 3 at WOW
Hall, and Oregon Symphonic Band at Beall June 8,
including music by contemporary American composers
David Maslanka and Frani Ticheli. And then the mother
of all Eugene jazz parties: all UO jazz combos and Big
Band, plus LCC’s jazz groups, blowing from 5-11
pm Sunday, June 11, at the Jazz Station, which on June
3 also hosts Tom Bergeron’s Brasil Band, featuring its
original pianist, the Brazilian composer Cassio Vianna.
Speaking of jazz fusion, on June 1 The Shedd brings
back French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, who took over
the jazz violin legacy established by earlier greats like
Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti in the 1970s, when
his jazz-rock fusion of that era was all over jazz radio.
Since then, he’s continued to merge jazz with other
music, including Indian, African, orchestral and even
joined that paragon of fusion, Return to Forever. At The
CORWIN BOLT Shedd he’ll have a quartet featuring guitar, keyboards
and rhythm section.
The next night, Friday, June 2, The Shedd features another virtuoso who earned a
reputation in the 1970s, guitarist David Lindley, who along with gracing pop albums by
Jackson Browne and others led his own bands that melded various world music traditions.
Playing various stringed instruments, he’ll take you on a musical journey — make that
party — that stops in African, Asian, Arabian, Celtic, Turkish and other musical territories.
eugeneweekly.com • June 1, 2017
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