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3 weeks ago | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews |Oregon ArtsWatch
Every year on the First of April we’re tempted to write a MusicWatch Monthly that is nothing but Fake News, a music journalism April Fool’s Joke, Onion-style stuff like this: Oregon Symphony Orchestra principal cellist Nancy Ives quits symphony to join Portland “black magick metal” band Bewitcher Portland Youth Philharmonic welcomes 70-year-old high school student William Madison as new concertmaster Third Angle New Music announces collaboration with AI-generated hologram of John Cage Pink...
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1 month ago | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews |Oregon ArtsWatch
So the big news in Oregon Music right now is that one-man-black-metal-band Mizmor–aka the mysterious A.L.N.–has his own Newks hot sauce. “Very excited to announce the very first Mizmor hot sauce! I’ve been a fan of Portland’s own Newks Hot Sauce for years now, so it’s an honor to finally collaborate with Jake on something. “Unleash the intensity with this limited edition collaboration between Newk’s and Mizmor.
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2 months ago | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews |Oregon ArtsWatch
Every February for the last few decades, the present author has spent most of the month, aka Black History Month, focusing on music made by Black musicians. Sometimes that’s exploratory — extended visits with record store clerks or music bloggers, which is how I first heard Fela Kuti and Fishbone. Sometimes it’s a deep dive into the catalog of artists I already enjoy.
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Jan 1, 2025 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews
Happy New Year!Do you have a favorite New Year tradition? A favorite image of the passing from one year to the next? One theme that always haunts our mind’s eye this time of year is Baby New Year, generally paired with Father Time (as in the above image). There might be a stork or something, but generally the idea is “Out with the Old, In with the New.” You can find pre-echoes of this in the myth of , Cronos, and establishing the Olympian Age.
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Dec 26, 2024 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews
Today, dear reader, we begin by pondering a Commonwealth holiday that would probably benefit other countries of the West: We refer, of course, to Boxing Day. If you’re lucky enough to know any Canadians or Australians, you probably know about this one. It’s when we pack up all the Christmas crap and put it away until next year — hence the name.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews
The thing about Christmas music isn’t that some people love it and some people hate it–what’s interesting is that the love and the hate are about the same things. We know people who have petitioned to have their workplaces not play Christmas music, and we find that rather telling. Because it’s not the music itself, not really, and not even what it represents, but what what it represents represents. Let’s unpack that.
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Nov 28, 2024 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews
Today we give thanks to you, dear reader–for your relentless curiosity, your impeccable taste, and your ongoing interest in The Music of Oregon. Without you, we and the musicians we enthuse about would be nothing more than random voices in the forest, echoing off the Doug Firs like the ghost choirs of vanished Sasquatch clans who, according to some rogue historians, still roam the region’s mountain ranges searching for love and mushrooms.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews
Deena T. Grossman’s music is characterized by two qualities: improvisation and immersion in nature. Both qualities are informed by a deep personal listening history drenched in all kinds of music, most of it falling under one “folk music” heading or another. There’s American folk music, from Pete Seeger to Rhiannon Giddens. There’s Japanese shakuhachi music; Balinese gamelan; Indian raga and dance; the Eastern European Jewish cultural/religious/musical tradition.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews |Jeff Winslow
Well, dear reader, the day is upon us. A few weeks ago an acquaintance said, “ugh I can’t wait for this election cycle to be over!” And it took an effort to refrain from quipping, “this election cycle will never be over”–which is true (the last one isn’t even over) but it would have been unkind to say so.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
orartswatch.org | Matthew Neil Andrews
Local composer, tenor, and pianist Jesse Preis (Oregon via Wyoming) had wanted to write a small-scale opera ever since 2018, when they sang a staged version of Schubert’s Winterreise. That experience led to a series of private musical sketches on Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven.” Preis then used their pandemic downtime to turn those sketches into a three-voice setting (two narrators, one raven). The work will be premiered by Renegade Opera on November 9 and 10.
