MUSIC
BY BRETT CAMPBELL
TAKING IT OUTSIDE
Portland pianist brings free classical music
to Mt. Pisgah and other Oregon outdoor spots
A
few years ago, Oregon-born pianist Hunter Noack was scheduled to play Arnold
Schoenberg’s famous 1899 composition Transfigured Night at London’s Barbi-
can Center. Since the original poem was set in a dark forest, Noack brought in 50
trees, playing the music as audience and actors dramatizing the story wandered
through the impromptu indoor arbor.
“People responded to hearing classical music in a different environment,” Noack
recalls, “so I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to use the actual outdoors?’” in a performance.
This month, the 28-year-old Noack is realizing that idea with “In a Landscape” —
13 free performances of classical and contemporary music in outdoor locations around
Oregon, including Mount Pisgah Arboretum next Thursday, Sept. 14. Repertoire ranges
from music by Liszt, Schubert, Brahms and Ravel to longtime Oregon resident Ernest
Bloch and the luminous John Cage composition that gives the series its title.
Some performances feature various guests, from Pink Martini founder-pianist Thomas
Lauderdale to former Miss America Katie Harman Ebner, members of Portland
Chamber Orchestra, Eugene Symphony and more. The series uses today’s technology
to augment the musical experience and connects today’s listeners (including many new to
classical music) to a vital part of Oregon’s — and America’s — artistic heritage, and to its
perpetrator’s own childhood.
Nature and classical music were the two most important parts of the Newport-born
Noack’s life growing up in Sunriver and Bend. His mother directed the Sunriver Music
Festival, which brought classical musicians, including medalists from the famous Van
Cliburn piano competition, to his hometown every year. “Those are the people I looked up
to,” remembers Noack, who started playing piano at age 4. “When I wasn’t practicing, I
spent all my time outside.”
Those idyllic Oregon days ended when the 13-year-old Noack departed for high school
at Michigan’s renowned Interlochen Arts Academy to develop his prodigious pianistic
talents, then to college and graduate study at San Francisco Conservatory of Music,
University of Southern California and London’s Guildhall School.
Noack’s path back to Oregon began when a mutual friend introduced him to Lauderdale
after Pink Martini’s 2013 London show. The two pianists’ friendship blossomed, they
began dating, and Noack moved to Portland, where he now lives with Lauderdale. Last
year, he played Liszt’s music onstage with Oregon Ballet Theater and Chopin’s music with
Northwest Dance Project.
Noack really wanted to bring music out of expensive urban concert halls and set it free
outdoors, so last summer he created the first run of “Landscape” performances in various
Portland-area venues.
Alfresco acoustics can pose challenges, with the sound dissipating or distorted by
amplification. Noack’s solution: passing out wireless headphones to attendees who want
to use them, beaming the music he’s playing to them, even enhancing it with digital magic
to make it sound even more like a concert hall. “There’s no barrier between your brain and
the headphones,” Noack explains. “There’s something powerful about having a personal
experience but also sharing it with other people. It’s not isolating.”
Thanks to public and private grants, admission is by donation. (Tickets are still needed;
check HunterNoack.com for reservations and the full list of locations.) Noack’s goal
of making high level classical music accessible to new audiences was inspired by the
New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, which helped fund artists during the Great
Depression, helping them survive and bringing their work to broad audiences via free and
low-cost performances and exhibitions. Noack wanted to remind today’s listeners of the
role public support can play in the arts.
“In the spirit of the WPA, I wanted everything free or donation based,” he explains.
“I think it’s important for it to be non-exclusive from a both financial and location
perspective. We cruise around the state from Steens Mountain to the desert to the coast and
bring classical music to Oregon. We roll into a park or town square or schoolhouse, and do
what I love to do. It’s so wonderful to have a reason to be at a place where I want to be.”
If indoor classical music is your jam, catch the so-called “People’s Diva” Renée
Fleming with the Eugene Symphony Sept. 19, singing songs and arias by Dvorak, Faure,
Delibes and others, including Samuel Barber’s poignant American classic Knoxville
Summer of 1915. The orchestra plays Aaron Copland’s Down a Country Lane, music from
operas by Verdi and Bizet and more.
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eugeneweekly.com • September 7, 2017
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