A Monday quick chatter
Art Scatter hereby congratulates the winners (and the nominees, for that matter) of this year’s Oregon Book Awards, especially Steve Patterson, whom we track on his Splattworks blog, for winning the drama award for his “Lost Wavelengths.” If you think doing theater is hard in the provinces, writing theater is even less rewarding, and Steve had written something like 25 plays (per his website). So, bravo Mr. Patterson. UPDATE: We recommend that you link to Mr. Mead’s pupu platter for a longer take on Mr. Patterson!
Two other items grabbed our attention in our Monday morning Oregonian. First, Marty Hughley’s unabashedly positive review of Thom Pain (based on nothing) and its star Matthew DiBiasio, which requires us to go to Beaverton to see Will Eno’s one-man rumination about, well, pain.
Second, we were happy to see that James McQuillen concurred (mostly and more learnedly) with our happiness over Tomas Svoboda’s new string quartet and much of the rest of the Third Angle show. Art Scatter needs all the validation it can get for its musical taste, so thank you for that Mr. McQuillen. On a side note, in a comment to our original post on Svoboda below, Jane Jarrett mentioned that Bill Eddins had blogged about it. Well, our report of Eddins’ performance yesterday afternoon with the Oregonian Symphony couldn’t have been more positive — a full and interesting sort of lecture-demo of Brahms’ first symphony.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I can second the recommendation for Thom Pain, which I saw at PSU in its original run last year. Strange, intense piece, which requires an actor who can handle the intensity while still providing an undercurrent of wry humor and other subsurface complexities. DiBiasio delivers.
I, too, loved Third Angle’s concert. Every piece had something compelling to offer, and I can’t imagine any music lover, classical or otherwise, who wouldn’t have been impressed by the wild mood swings and furious performance of the last piece by Reza Vali. Kevin Volans’s affable excursion for flute and clapping was a delight, and the Svoboda was a revelation — so much sunnier and more pastoral than his other quartets. It’s great to see him getting his due, locally, but a shame that both performances of his quartets happened on the same night (the other involved FearNoMusic at a fundraiser on the east side), and the same night as a new music concert at Lewis & Clark, Seth Nehil’s music/film thing at AudioCinema, the Superman film music show at the Hollywood (featuring seven contemporary composers, including 3 Oregonians), and probably more. I guess it’s the downside of our current embarrassment of contemporary music riches.
Speaking of which — new flutist Alicia DiDonato Paulsen was terrific in all of the pieces that featured her. With her and Molly Barth just down the road in Eugene, looks like we’re in for some incredible flutistery. What a wonderful program that showed the vitality of contemporary postclassical music, and the value of Third Angle to Portland.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
You are exactly right. The Fear No Music Svoboda quartets show completely escaped me. Fortunately, Superman repeats on Friday! Portland’s post-classical universe needs to coordinate its concerts a bit better, if it wants us to see them all! By the way, Svoboda himself hurried from Third Angle Friday over to Fear No Music, so he was present for both… I’m thinking maybe that’s a first for a Portland composer.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I hope the Bowmer Prize attracts attention to Steve’s remarkable, ingenious, sad and hilarious play Lost Wavelengths, which I was privileged to work on with him at JAW in 2006. Many of us from back then are exultant that Steve is getting the recognition he deserves.