600 SE Stark St.
Confluence Visiting Artist Series presents
Wayne Horvitz’s
Some Places Are Forever Afternoon
Thursday, October 8, 7:30 pm doors, 8 pm show
Michelle’s Pianos, 600 SE Stark St.
(503)295-1180
$12 – 20 sliding scale. All ages.
The Creative Music Guild is proud to present Wayne Horvitz and his project Some Places Are Forever Afternoon. The ensemble (Wayne Horvitz – Piano, Ron Miles – Trumpet, Peggy Lee – Cello, Sara Schoenbeck – Bassoon, Timothy Young – Guitar, Keith Lowe – Bass and Eric Eagle – Drums) will perform a suite based upon writings by Pacific Northwest poet Richard Hugo as part of a Northwest tour in support of a CD + 26-page booklet release for the project on Songlines. The Portland performance begins at 8PM at Michelle’s Pianos in SE Portland. $12 – 20 sliding scale admission. All ages welcome. Tickets available at http://someplacesareportland.brownpapertickets.com.
SOME PLACES ARE FOREVER AFTERNOON (11 PLACES FOR RICHARD HUGO)
“The earthy nobility of this music could easily stand on its own, with no poetic corollary.” – The New York Times
“…an absorbing collection of music that manages to merge the visceral and intellectual in much the same way that Hugo’s writing does.” – All About Jazz
“Horvitz’s unique expression of cinematic jazz-chamber-folk… highly lyrical, deeply melodic music that inspires imagery of full-moon nights over dark alleys, warm beams of sunlight cast through the gaping holes of abandoned industrial complexes, and a curious tranquility that radiates a reverential tone and an ambiance tailored for paradise.” – Bird is the Worm
Commissioned with funding from the Shifting Foundation, the piece is a suite of 11 pieces based on the poems of Richard Hugo. The instrumentation combines two of Horvitz’s working ensembles, The Gravitas Quartet and Sweeter Than the Day. Each composition is inspired by a different poem of Hugo’s. In its final iteration, the poems will be published in the booklet accompanying the CD. As the suite travels in the Northwest, local readers will read each poem following the performance of the corresponding piece. Many of these readers knew Hugo, and all of them maintain deep connections to the places that inspired the poet.
Richard Hugo was born in White Center, and lived throughout the Northwest before settling in Missoula, Montana. He taught poetry at the University of Montana, and is the inspiration for a plethora of writers of the west, including James and Lois Welch, William Kittredge, Frances McCue and countless others. The Richard Hugo House in Seattle is named in his memory. Hugo passed away in 1982.
Hugo loved to visit the small towns and odd places all through this part of the world, from West Marginal Way to La Push to the Union Bar Grill in rural Montana. He would sit in a cafe or bar for hours before he returned home to write. He was a great lover of music, and jazz in particular. It is Hugo’s enduring love of music, rambling, and the places of the Northwest that inspired Horvitz’s interpretation of his work, which honors and celebrates the poet’s legacy.
The members of the ensemble are: Wayne Horvitz-Piano, Ron Miles-Trumpet, Peggy Lee-Cello, Sara Schoenbeck-Bassoon, Timothy Young-Guitar, Keith Lowe-Bass and Eric Eagle-Drums. The tremendous talent in the band is available for workshops accompanying the performances.
In June 2014, Horvitz traveled throughout the Pacific NW to visit a variety of places where Hugo wrote his poetry. Horvitz spent the month of August 2014, at the Sally and Don Lucas Artist Residency at the Montalvo Performing Arts Center, composing the pieces that make up the suite. The pieces include composed and improvisational elements. During the first week of 2015 the piece was rehearsed and recorded in Seattle.
The CD release is scheduled for June 2015 (Songlines) and includes a 26-page booklet with the poems, photos and an essay by the composer.
Wayne Horvitz
Wayne Horvitz is a composer, pianist and electronic musician who has performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. He is the leader of the Gravitas Quartet, Sweeter Than the Day, Zony Mash, The Four plus One Ensemble and co-founder of the New York Composers Orchestra. He has performed and collaborated with Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, John Zorn, George Lewis, Robin Holcomb, Fred Frith, Julian Priester, Michael Shrieve and Carla Bley, among others. Commissioners include the NEA, Meet the Composer, Kronos String Quartet, Seattle Chamber Players, BAM, and Earshot Jazz. Collaborators include Paul Taylor, Liz Lerman, Bill Irwin and Gus Van Sant. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including two MAP grants and the NEA American Masterpiece award. Recent compositions include The Heartsong of Charging Elk based on the novel by James Welch and 55: Music and Dance in Concrete: a site-specific collaboration with dancer Yukio Suzuki and video artist Yohei Saito. He is the music programmer for The Royal Room, a performance venue in Seattle, Washington, and a professor of composition at the Cornish College of the Arts. (http://www.waynehorvitz.net)
The Creative Music Guild is a Portland, Oregon all-volunteer, non-profit organization whose mission is to promote experimental, improvised music by presenting concerts, workshops and other events that bring together internationally recognized musicians with local performers, audiences and music students of all ages. For over twenty years, the CMG has been a leader in cultivating Portland’s experimental and improvised music.
Confluence, our visiting artist series, is where the CMG started back in 1991 with bringing the best improvisers in the world to Portland. We present 6-8 concerts a year by artists from all over the world at venues around Portland. Our programming committee carefully curates this series taking into account diversity (both musical diversity as well as gender & ethnic diversity), quality and recognition (extremely high quality of craft is a given and some degree of critical and/or community recognition within the creative improvisation scene is crucial) and the ability of the musicians to come to Portland without our help (we generally don’t get involved in concerts that would happen without us).
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