Some of this fall’s most recommended classical music shows feature music inspired by stories and voices lost to or neglected by history – including, but not limited to, women. Fortunately, the genre is no longer all about dead men – many concerts prominently feature music written by women who are very much alive and performing and composing, including the youngest ever Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw, who lives right here in Portland and whose innovative, emotionally engaging music graces several of this fall’s concerts.
Karen Slack: ‘African Queens’ – Presented by Portland Opera
Besides her sterling soprano voice and starring performances with every major American opera company, Karen Slack is renowned for venturing far beyond the standard operatic repertoire and performing music by contemporary and unfairly neglected composers. Accompanied by pianist Kevin Miller, the 2025 Grammy winner, who also serves as Portland Opera’s Artistic Adviser, will sing music by some of today’s brightest rising composers: Jasmine Barnes, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Carlos Simon, and more, including Portland Opera’s Music Director Damien Geter.
7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13-14, Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St., Beaverton; $36-$56, thereser.org.
‘Atoms & Artifacts’ – New Wave Opera
On a January evening in 1880, a 45-year-old “dissipated woman” named Alice Tierney was found strangled and strung up on a Philadelphia fence. The police called it an accident. Today, composer Melissa Dunphy lives on that property, and when she learned about Tierney’s death, she and librettist Jacqueline Goldfinger decided to try to tell as much of her story as they (and the four fictional archeologist they created for their original opera) could unearth.
“Alice Tierney” is one of two one-act operas presented by New Wave Opera. Founded by a pair of Portland Opera chorus singers, NWO showcases contemporary music by a diverse array of today’s composers, featuring accomplished singers accompanied by chamber ensembles. In the program’s other West Coast premiere, “Marie Curie Learns to Swim” by composer Jessica Rudman and librettist Kendra Preston Leonard, the famed Nobel Prize winning physicist’s daughter forces her mother to confront the (ultimately deadly) dangers of her groundbreaking radium research.
7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 19-21, University of Portland Mago Hunt Recital Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd.; $20-$40, newwaveopera.org
‘LINEAGE: Sound & Fury’ – Orchestra Nova Northwest
Like its other concerts this season, the former Columbia Symphony orchestra’s season opening program pairs connected contemporary and classic works. This show features an orchestral version of Portland composer Caroline Shaw’s dramatic “Entr’acte,” plus acclaimed British composer Anna Clyne’s “Sound and Fury,” alongside the fun Haydn symphony (nicknamed, approximately, “The Absent-Minded Dude”) that inspired it.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28, Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St., Beaverton; $36-$56, novanw.org.
‘Sing for the Cure: A Proclamation of Hope’ – Oregon Repertory Singers
The adventurous large choir brings together artists, a 30-member orchestra, advocates, survivors, local celebs, and supporters for a concert that raises money for and awareness of breast cancer research. The centerpiece: a 70-minute oratorio written by 10 American composers that integrates music, personal stories and narration. A portion of the proceeds benefit Pink Lemonade Project, which provides programs and services for Oregonians affected by breast cancer.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway; $26-$104, orsingers.org.
‘Three Rivers’ – Cascadia Composers
The regional composers’ collective — one of America’s largest — celebrates Northwest riparian resplendence with new, homegrown music performed by the Metolius Trio: pianist Andrew Cannestra, violinist Ben Ehrmantraut, and cellist Austin Bennett. The program includes works covering a wide range of styles by familiar Oregon composers (Theresa Koon, Nicholas Yandell, Paul Safar) along with fresh voices Ian Wiese, Alon Nechushtan, Mary Fineman, Steven P. James, I’lana S. Cotton, and Brian Field.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, Lincoln Performance Hall, room 75, 1620 S.W. Park Ave.; $10-$30, cascadiacomposers.org.
‘All Shall Be Well’ – In Mulieribus
The peerless all-woman vocal ensemble, best known for its luminous performances of medieval and other ancient music, this time ventures into the 20th century with British composer Gustav Holst’s “Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda,” and into the 21st a pair of similarly spiritually inspired contemporary compositions: “All Shall Be Well” by Carol Jones, and the great American composer Steve Reich’s brief, beguiling “Know What Is Above You.”
7 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18-19. St. Philip Neri Church, 2408 S.E. 16th Ave.; $16-$47, inmulieribus.org.
esperanza spalding – Oregon Symphony
The orchestra gets all jazzy with Portland’s own homegrown bassist/singer composer legend, who’ll perform some of her own exciting, original songs, along with award-winning rising star Jessie Montgomery’s stirring “Hymn For Everyone,” and a pair of major works by one of jazz’s greatest-ever composers, the venerated Wayne Shorter, whose late-life collaboration with spalding was a highlight of both their careers.
7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18-19, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway; $35-$163, orsymphony.org.
‘Evergreen’ – Third Angle New Music
When anyone — or any organization — reaches its 40th birthday, either midlife crisis or complacency often sets in. Not so with Oregon’s oldest new music organization. Not only does this irresistible chamber music concert feature contemporary music inspired by the Pacific Northwest, including two written by local composers (Caroline Shaw and 3A violist Wendy Richman), plus Japanese composer Dai Fujikura’s “Perpetual Spring,” which the group recorded a few years ago. They’re also all commissioned by Third Angle, and one is a world premiere. The show includes poetry recited by erstwhile Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford. Even in midlife, Third Angle is keeping classical music fresh and locally grown.
7:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 22-23, World Forestry Center, 4033 S.W. Canyon Road; $35-$45, Thirdangle.org.
‘The Sound of Us’ – Resonance Ensemble and Fear No Music
In recent years no Oregon classical music organization has incorporated social justice concerns into its programming as astutely, devotedly — and entertainingly — as Resonance Ensemble and Fear No Music. Now the two socially conscious contemporary music groups — one all-vocal, the other all-instrumental — team up for a concert of new music written entirely by some of Portland’s finest composers: Stacey Philipps, Sydney Guillaume, Cecille Elliott, Renée Favand-See, and Caroline Shaw. Award winning composer/singer/sound artist and Reed College prof Bora Yoon, joins Resonance and FNM regulars with her signature amalgamation of electronics, voice and immersive media.
7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, Benson Polytechnic High School Auditorium, 546 N.E. 12th Ave.; $5-$40, resonancechoral.org.
‘York the Explorer’
At a moment when the long-dominant culture is striving to erase certain aspects of history to conform to national mythology, this new made-in-Portland folk opera elevates an unfairly neglected character of the storied Lewis & Clark exhibition. Using historical source material, award winning Portland musician and educator Aaron Nigel Smith (music and book) and poet/activist/journalist S. Renee Mitchell (lyrics) tell the story of York, the enslaved Black man who was an essential part of the celebrated journey of discovery that helped shape America. Set to a multicultural mixture of folk, classical, reggae, jazz, and hip-hop music, “York” takes audiences of all ages on their own voyage to discover hidden truths behind the myth.
7:30 p.m. Friday- Saturday, Oct. 24-25, Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 S.W. Crescent St., Beaverton; $20-$35, thereser.org.
Trio Afiori – Presented by Chamber Music Northwest
This new all-star trio (prize winning clarinetist Anthony McGill, Grammy Award-winning singer Fleur Barron, and CMNW artistic Director and pianist Gloria Chien) performs a fascinating program of contemporary compositions (all commissioned by CMNW) by Kian Ravaei, Alex Ho and Imani Winds founder Valerie Coleman, plus a couple of Brahms classics.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 S.W. Park Ave.; $20-$77, cmnw.org.
‘Living Memories’ – Cappella Romana and 45th Parallel Universe
You may know about the tragic exchange of Hindus and Muslims that followed the end of British rule on the Indian subcontinent after World War II. A less deadly but still fraught exchange happened after World War I, when many thousands of ethnic Greeks and Turks were forcibly uprooted from areas their ancestors had occupied for centuries. In his new “The Lost Anthem,” co-commissioned by Cappella Romana, composer Dimitris Skyllas tells this poignant story through original music performed by the esteemed Portland vocal consort and musicians of 45th Parallel Universe, setting poetry in English, Greek, and Turkish. This all-contemporary program from a vocal group best known for ancient sounds includes selections from the “Requiem” by one of the most revered Greek composers, Mikis Theodorakis (who scored “Zorba the Greek”), 20th century English composer John Tavener, and the world premiere of “Mystical Versicles” by another contemporary Greek composer, Christos Hatzis.
2 p.m. Saturday Nov. 15, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 3131 N.E. Glisan St.; $33-$58, cappellaromana.org.
Takács Quartet – Presented by Friends of Chamber Music
Portlanders are lucky that Friends of Chamber annually brings the Takács String Quartet to town. Any opportunity to experience possibly the world’s finest chamber music ensemble is to be treasured, but this appearance is especially valuable, because Tuesday’s performance will include a fifth player. Violist Jordan Bak enables them to perform Mozart’s greatest chamber compositions, his two viola quintets, which are comparatively rarely performed because there are oodles of touring string quartets and few if any quintets. Monday’s show includes Debussy’s sole, magical quartet, a Haydn gem, and a newly commissioned quartet by the excellent contemporary composer Clarice Assad — who FOCM is also bringing to Beaverton’s Reser Center with her own trio Nov. 2.
7:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 8-9, Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 S.W. Park Ave.; $32-$63, focm.org.
‘Everest’ – Portland Opera
The most memorable explorations aren’t always the successful. Take Robert Scott’s doomed Antarctic expedition, or the 1996 attempted climb of the world’s highest peak, detailed in Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air”. In a daringly innovative production created by San Francisco’s excellent Opera Parallèle, that latter disaster, as told in the much-admired British composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer’s 2014 one-act opera “Everest,” is reimagined as a kind of immersive graphic novel. Instead of the usual live musicians, this production uses recorded singers and orchestral music, along with animated film storytelling and interactive experiences (e.g. rain ponchos for the audience and other props). In some ways it’s less than a traditional operatic experience — but in others, much more.
7:30 p.m. Dec. 12-20 and 2 p.m. Dec. 21, World Trade Center Theatre, 121 S.W. Salmon St.; $50, portlandopera.org.
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