Homer’s The Odyssey is a tale that I’ve read some half a dozen times over the years. Recently it provided half the inspiration to my Clarinet Concerto: Adrift on the Wine-dark Sea (the other half was from Melissa Fleming’s book A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea which tells the harrowing true story of another Mediterranean odyssey made by Syrian refugee Doaa al-Zamel). So when A Far Cry’s Sara Darling suggested Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Odyssey as a text source for our collaboration with the Lorelei Ensemble I felt both the comfort of familiarity but also some anxiety. The latter wa ..read more

It was on a plane ride home from Portland in 2013 when I wrote my 3rd looper piece, and after that the flood gates swung open and I knew I was supposed to be a composer. On that very trip I met Alicia Jo Rabins, a cool violinist/poet/ singer/songwriter that I somehow knew would be part of my life down the line. Fast forward five years and I was using some of her poetry, alongside other fierce female living poets, to create my first evening length show And She. Fast forward another five years, and her words are the basis of this work ..read more

Ruth Gipps lived a remarkable life in a society which was not prepared to fully accept all of her considerable abilities. Accomplished as pianist, oboist, composer, and conductor, her success during her life was limited by her gender. Although she conducted choruses and orchestras, wrote articles, lectured and taught, she was constantly frustrated that major conductors failed to consider programming her works and major orchestras refused to engage her as conductor ..read more

JEFF SCOTT THE JOURNEY (2022) I. The Awakening II. Fool’s March - Dance of the Jesters III. Falling Serenade IV. Depression V. Heroic Return ..read more

Written by PYP French Horn player, Hannah Ruark PYP musicians Hannah Ruark, Alex Notarte, and Spencer Moody all participated in Clark College’s 59th Annual Jazz Festival the weekend of January 26-28, 2023. As a part of their school’s Jazz Ensemble - Mountain View High School’s Jazz 1, located in Vancouver, WA, and directed by Samuel Ormson - they participated in this three-day long festival with over 60 other jazz bands from over 60 different middle and high schools to compete in their respective divisions in front of a panel of extremely talented and renowned jazz educators ..read more

Notes by Thomas Stangland SIX VARIATIONS for Violin and String Orchestra, Op. 32 was completed July 4, 1961 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Svoboda recalls it was a carefree and happy period in his life as a young composer, working part-time at Plzen Radio (in West Bohemia), arranging many folk tunes for broadcasting purposes. SIX VARIATIONS is based on the theme from the last movement of Svoboda’s String Quartet No. 1, Op. 29, composed the year before. It’s premiere took place during the summer of 1961, with a broadcast by the Plzen Radio Symphony Orchestra ..read more

Portland Youth Philharmonic Orchestra French horn player Hannah Ruark says being in PYP “means pushing yourself to be better…PYP made me the musician I am now. Being in a space where I am given songs that are difficult, and I feel like I can’t play pushes me to be better and to practice more.” Hannah first joined the organization when she was 13; she has participated in the Portland Youth Wind Ensemble (PYWE), Conservatory Orchestra (PYCO), and now at 16, performs in the Philharmonic Orchestra. “The first big [musical] achievement I ever made was when I first joined PYWE because when I was in ..read more

Join us on November 12 for a pre-show lobby performance! PYP is excited to announce that ArtMax Academy Executive Director and santoor player Hossein Salehi, kamancheh player Bobak Salehi, and oud player Nat Hulskamp will be performing Persian Melodies in Isfahan in the lobby of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall ahead of the Philharmonic Orchestra’s opening concert “Autumn Variations.” During “Autumn Variations,” we will hear the world premiere of UK based Iranian composer Farhad Poupel’s Childhood Memories (Persian Suite), of which ArtMax Academy has supported ..read more

Farhad Poupel’s Childhood Memories, a musical composition of hope and nostalgia, will be premiered on November 12 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall by the Portland Youth Philharmonic. This article will be published in The Portland Observer on November 2, 2022 ..read more

PYP Music Theory Teacher, Oswald Huỳnh was recently chosen for the Emerging Composer Commission program by The Musiqa Artistic Board ..read more