James Bash

6 days ago | oregonlive.com | James Bash

“Timelessness is a huge theme,” said Nancy Ives in describing her music for orchestra and spoken voice, “Celilo Falls.” “Native peoples have lived in the Columbia River Gorge for 18,000 years.”The Oregon Symphony will perform Ives’ “Celilo Falls,” accompanied by the photography of Joe Cantrell and text by Ed Edmo, this weekend at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

1 week ago | oregonlive.com | James Bash

When he was five years old, George Takei was incarcerated with his family in a camp with thousands of other Japanese Americans. “I’ve told this story many, many times. It is an important chapter of American history,” said Takei during a Zoom call. “But it always takes me by surprise whenever I talk about my childhood imprisonment. People are shocked that this actually happened.”Takei was referring to the incarceration of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

1 week ago | orartswatch.org | James Bash

It’s hard to believe that Classical Up Close has just finished its twelfth season, but it’s true. What began as a response to the cancellation of the Oregon Symphony’s return to Carnegie Hall in 2013 has blossomed into an annual event of free chamber music that puts the artists up close and personal with listeners.

2 weeks ago | classicalvoiceamerica.org | James Bash

PORTLAND, Ore. – Pianist Makato Ozone made a splashy debut with the Oregon Symphony on May17 with a jazz-infused and invigorating performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Ozone’s fans, including a large contingent of young Japanese men, flooded the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and almost filled it for the first time in quite a while (the Schnitz, as it is locally known, accommodates 2,700 people).

1 month ago | columbian.com | James Bash

It all started with a broken ukulele that had been abandoned in the living room of Daniel Kim’s house. Although the body of the instrument was split on one side, it was playable. So Kim, who is known by patients at his Vancouver clinic as “the singing dentist,” decided to pick out a few notes to a song that he loved. But it wasn’t long before he discovered an original melody, which he wrote on a few pages of blank music paper.