Contemporary Music Industry Showcase

Join us for an incredible array of up and coming talent from Oregon State University Contemporary Music, Music Production, Jazz programs, and more. Featuring student led projects and original works! Guest faculty, too!

Original music from a variety of styles of music making. Everything from pop-punk, bossa nova, blues, singer-songwriter, jam band and live electronics and visuals.

https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/svpda/music/academic-programs/ba-and-bs-degrees/contemporary-music-industry

Todd Sickafoose’s BEAR PROOF 

Jenny Scheinman / violin 

Adam Levy / guitar  

Carmen Staaf / piano  

Ben Goldberg / clarinet 

Kirk Knuffke / cornet 

Rob Reich / accordion 

Allison Miller / drums 

Todd Sickafoose / acoustic bass, composer 

West Coast native Todd Sickafoose is a musical  visionary. JazzTimes calls him “thoroughly  

original” and “endlessly creative,” and the San  Francisco Chronicle calls him “a captivating  

improviser, imaginative composer, and master of  collaboration.” He’s worked with an array of  

amazing performers – the New Yorker has  

referred to him as “Ani DiFranco’s secret weapon”  and he is the Tony and GRAMMY award-winning  orchestrator and music producer of Anais  

Mitchell’s current Broadway hit “Hadestown”.  

Tonight’s concert will be a rare performance of  BEAR PROOF, an hour-long piece commissioned  by Chamber Music America. Todd describes the  music, which he composed specifically for this  octet, as “a surreal meditation on BOOM and  BUST.” Members of the all-star ensemble have  played with a range of musical innovators, from  Bill Frisell to Norah Jones, Dee Dee Bridgewater  to Dr. Lonnie Smith, Tin Hat to Andrew Bird.

Keeping a band together, particularly among the mercurial community of jazz musicians, is no small feat. Other gigs beckon. Life outside of making art takes precedence. It’s a reality that makes the continued existence and progression of Portland quintet Blue Cranes feel so momentous. The ensemble — saxophonists Reed Wallsmith and Joe Cunningham, drummer Ji Tanzer, keyboardist Rebecca Sanborn, and bassist Jon Shaw — has been working together in a variety of formats since 2004, creating a solid body of work that has connected them to both the traditional sounds and the future-minded artists of their chosen genre.

What has kept them together, even as Cunningham has lived outside of Portland for the past few years, is strong personal and creative bonds. As a collective, their remit has always been to continually push their art further and further outside their comfort zones and to the edges of their abilities. It’s what fueled the group’s last album, 2021’s Voices, which found Blue Cranes recording for the first time with an assortment of vocalists (Laura Gibson, Edna Vazquez, Holland Andrews, Peter Broderick, Laura Veirs). And that desire to stretch even further beyond their previous work is at the heart of their new album My Only Secret. “I felt like I was getting in a rut, harmonically,” Wallsmith says. “I was trying to get out of that. To bring in more complexity and not do the same thing again.” 

To that end, Wallsmith brought elements of twelve-tone and through-composition into his writing. “Semicircle” has an ever changing tonal center, while “Forward” keeps shifting and evolving in the manner of cloud formations being pushed along the sky. Cunningham, meanwhile, took on a nonlinear form of songwriting. “Gaviota” evokes the minimalist work of John Adams with its intertwining melodies and an extended coda that brings in some rattling percussion, the flute playing of John C. Savage, and the trombone of James Powers. 

Another major shift for the band was to change the way they recorded My Only Secret. Created during the height of the quarantine,  Blue Cranes altered their usual way of recording out of necessity, tracking each part separately and in duets  across the studio window in Wallsmith’s basement. With some help from longtime cohorts Jason Powers and Todd Sickafoose, Wallsmith built the songs up using the individual components, usually adding Tanzer last in the process, because, he notes, “Ji is such an expressive player and is so in the moment, reacting to what’s happening. I felt like we’d lose all that otherwise.” Even with this temporal separation, says Cunningham, “it was like we were responding to each other. There was communication happening in the same space but at different times. And somehow it sounds like we’re playing live in the same room.” 
What will always stay the same with Blue Cranes no matter how much they change as people, as players and as composers is the vibrant emotional core within the music they create. Each song on My Only Secret has a core memory attached to it, whether it is the birth of a child (“Sloan”), a parent’s comfort after the death of a beloved pet (“Rhododendron”), or the agony of the 2016 election results (“Forward”). They feel every moment of every song deeply, something which colors every note they play. “We’re a good emotional band,” says Cunningham. “We can go to that place.” The beauty of My Only Secret, like all of the work Blue Cranes has produced to date, is that they want anyone and everyone to join them.

Harlan believes in the power of music to comfort our minds and relax our bodies. As a cellist and multi-instrumentalist, his musical talents span across genres from classical music for meditation and wellness to hip hop. His diverse list of songwriting and producing credits range from Michelle Branch to The Late Show’s John Baptiste and the hip hop artist, Duckwrth. As a solo artist, Harlan has released four instrumental albums that have been wildly featured on playlists for mediation and wellness.

As a film and television composer, Harlan brings together all elements of his musical background. He has worked such talents as Lakeith Stanfield and had his music featured on such hit series HBO’S INSECURE and Hulu’s WOKE.

Harlan’s musical training began at the age of four, when he began playing the cello after seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform on television. Harlan went on to study with renown cellist Eugene Friesen at Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Jonah Parzen-Johnson

Bio

Jonah Parzen-Johnson makes music for baritone saxophone & flute that challenges listeners with experimental textures & forms while embracing them with warm approachable melodies. A Chicago native and longtime Brooklyn resident, Jonah has performed solo in more than a dozen countries across four continents. Jonah has brought his music to festivals in Berlin & Helsinki, concert halls in Istanbul & Bruges, rock clubs in Rotterdam & Montreal, and Jazz clubs in New York & Chicago. His solo performances are a deeply intimate experience, as he endeavors to share who he is, how he sees our world, and the temporary moments of community that we can all embrace together.

“Autechre-esque pings, burbles and boings swirl together in the backs as Parzen-Johnson takes deep, chest rattling sax solos that scale the same ecstatic heights as Mats Gustafson but in a much more disciplined and mantra-like manner.”

– The Wire Magazine

“Parzen-Johnson’s vaguely alien compositions split the difference between the organic and the synthetic with a far-reaching, expressive sound that carries an indefinable beauty.” 

– LA Times

“Jonah Parzen-Johnson drifts away from his jazz background toward a less defined terrain that suggests Brian Eno, film soundtracks, and the spaces between.” 

– The New Yorker

Links

Website – https://jonahpj.com

Bandcamp – https://jonahpj.bandcamp.com

Youtube – https://youtube.com/jonahpj

Substack – https://jonahpj.substack.com

Instagram – https://instagram.com/jonahbaritone

Long Drive Theatre is a performance group led by Kaitlyn Petrik (director, text) in close collaboration with Richie Greene (music). Their first work, Six Monologues, was developed with Kate Kilbourne and Andy Raybourne and had its premiere in August 2021. Since then, they have been performing as a trio (Petrik, Greene, Kilbourne) bringing experimental performance to bars, bookstores, backyards, and other non-traditional venues. 

@longdrivetheatre 

@katalun 

@richiegreene

Pacific Ambient Collective aka PAC is an electro acoustic ensemble consisting of core members Brandon Warren, Alex Arnold, and Timmy Barnett. They seek to stop time via stream-of-conscious improvisation, creating soundscapes that invoke the expansiveness of the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s a streaming link:

Zephyr

This upcoming installment will feature experimental Seattle, WA electronic musician Dustin Williams of Taseir Eyes, just intonated sound composer Richie Greene and new-to-town, kabbalistic project Broken Crow which includes Joel Nelson on electronic hurdy-gurdy, Sam Klapper on violin, and Caspar Sonnet on bowed percussion) A mystical, transportation night to be sure. Doors at 7:30, show at 8pm, $10 cover.