Esperanza Spalding gets three Grammy nominations.
Sometimes news just floods in, and we have to collect it all into one omnibus post and resolve to get back to the individual pieces later. That’s a lot like now, for example, because on the heels of Christopher Stowell’s departure from Oregon Ballet Theatre, a bunch more stuff has happened.
Ever since I came to Portland in 1979, Linda Magee has served as executive director of Chamber Music Northwest, running a tight, efficient organization that supported art making of a high order. Classical music organizations have had their struggles, especially recently, but CMNW has managed to adjust and keep things going. Last season, attendance was up 11 percent and the budget was balanced.
Magee’s partner through these years has been artistic director David Shifrin, whose contract runs through 2016. So, he will be on hand to help the transition with a replacement ED. And Magee’s staff is excellent, too, so while a search committee does its due diligence, things will be in good hands. In the meantime, though, we owe Linda both thanks and congratulations for her remarkable tenure at CMNW.
Following Allen Nause won’t be an easy task because he fit the ecology of ART so well, both artistically and personally, but new artistic director Dámaso Rodriguez comes to the task with a lot of pertinent experience. He co-founded a small, experimental theater company (the Furious Theatre Ensemble), a little like Chris Coleman did in Atlanta before coming to Portland Center Stage. And he worked as associate artistic director at a big theater, the Pasadena Playhouse, which went into bankruptcy while he was there (though it emerged and is now doing fine).
Named on Thursday to replace Nause, Rodriguez comes having worked with Hollywood stars at the Pasadena Playhouse (as Nause worked with William Hurt at ART) and shown a predilection for quirky contemporary plays. He will direct the West Coast premiere of “Ten Chimneys” by Jeffery Hatcher as his Artists Rep directorial debut in April.
We’ll be talking to him in days to come, so stay tuned!
In general the Grammy Awards mean practically nothing to me, but they mean enough to other people to note the musicians with local connections who nab a nomination, right?
So, a tip of the hat to the Oregon Symphony for the two nominations around last year’s “Music for a Time of War” CD on the Pentatone label for Best Orchestral Performance and for Best Engineered Album, Classical. That’s from the program that earned such critical enthusiasm for the orchestra at Carnegie Hall last year: Ives, Adams, Britten and Vaughan Williams’s Fourth Symphony. Which says that great, adventurous work IS sometimes rewarded.
The Grammy awards will be announced on February 10. Best of luck!
The support offered by Mayor Sam Adams to the arts community during his four years of mayor was really unprecedented, and judging from the comments of the major mayoral candidates this year, including mayor-elect Charlie Hales, that level of support will continue. Which is a major accomplishment all by itself.
The arts community is honoring Mayor Adams tonight at YU (Friday).á After a sold-out patron reception, the doors will open for a dance party at 9 pm, “featuring DJ PRASHANT, DJ EVAN ALEXANDER, Poison Waters, Anansi Beat, Boombots, Isaac Trimble, Axe Dide Samba, SexBots, Sabor Latino, Clay Hoffman, The Sliders, and other surprise performances throughout the evening.” Admission is $25 and proceeds go to The Right Brain Initiative and Work for Art.
It’s likely we’ll explore the Adams contribution to arts in the city at greater length in the future, just because it was so different. And needed.