Fall Arts Guide: Classical Music

Here are some of Portland’s music highlights for September and October (see visual arts and performing arts highlights):

Portland’s classical music scene has several areas of strength, including the Oregon Symphony Orchestra under the baton of maestro Carlos Kalmar, numerous groups devoted to new music, and several more delving deeply into chamber and early music. And it’s a highly participatory scene, too — your neighbor at a concert is likely to be a musician, too.

“The Bard Sings”

Resonance Ensemble

Oct. 27 (Agnes Flanagan Chapel Lewis & Clark College, 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road) and Oct. 28 (First Presbyterian Church, 1200 S.W. Alder St.)

The top-notch professional chorus sings settings of Shakespeare texts.

Gerhardt Plays Tchaikovsky

Oct. 27 & 29

Oregon Symphony, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway

The title work, featuring the return of Portland favorite Alban Gerhardt, this time playing the Russian romantic composer’s cello Variations on a Rococo Theme, isn’t even the best part of this concert, which also features a suite from Sergey Prokofiev’s great 20th century ballet Romeo and Juliet and the 1999 breakthrough work by one of the 21st century’s leading composers, English star Thomas Ades’s Asyla.

Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis

Oct. 22

Gerding Theater at the Armory, 128 N.W. 11th Ave.

In this Portland Piano International recital, the renowned pianist plays some of the doomed composer Franz Schubert’s last masterpieces.

Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers

Oct. 21

Portland Baroque Orchestra, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 147 N.W. 19th Ave.

Stephen Stubbs and Pacific Musicworks with Les Voix Baroques, some of North America’s most accomplished early music experts, perform one of the first masterpieces of the Baroque era and one of the greatest of all choral orchestral works, Claudio Monteverdi’s “Vespers of the Sacred Virgin.”

“Illuminating The Soul”

Oct. 19 & 21

Oregon Repertory Singers, First United Methodist Church, 1838 S.W. Jefferson St.

The choir sings music by Mozart and Mendelssohn; young Norwegian jazz pianist turned composer Ola Gjeilo; Spanish composer Carlos Surinach; and Finnish composer Einojuhaani Rautavaara; plus spirituals and gospels. Accompanist Naomi LaViolette will improvise at the keyboard in music by Gjeilo and Dave Brubeck.

David Byrne & St. Vincent

Oct. 18

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway

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