Looking Back 2020: Reports from the orchestra seats
Matthew Neil Andrews
December 31, 2020
Cut to December: It didn’t get less weird. Seeing the music and larger worlds from our almost front-row seats.
Cut to December: It didn’t get less weird. Seeing the music and larger worlds from our almost front-row seats.
A look back at a year of closures, crises, streamings and reimaginings, and ahead to a more cheerful 2021.
For lovers of movies, 2021 is looking almost as confusing as 2020 was. Marc Mohan starts the clarification process in this edition of Streamers.
A grant will help a Lincoln County arts activist spread happiness, one ukulele at a time.
Looking back: Remembering 15 Oregon arts and cultural leaders who died in the past 12 months.
Smith’s photos remind us that you don’t have to scratch the surface of time TOO deeply to find Old Portland.
2020’s wildfires left the artisans of Santiam Canyon reeling. A luthier and a painter look at what comes next.
Looking back: A devastating 2020 fire leaves ashes where the Santiam Canyon and its cultural life once thrived.
Christmas music is complicated and inescapable, ranging from infant refugees to flying reindeer.
ArtsWatch Weekly: Things to watch and listen to as the year ends; looking forward to 2021.
World traveling out of the question? Gary Ferrington’s globe-trotting from home—and sleeping in his own bed.
Band students at Toledo Jr/Sr High School have their choice of instruments, but a tuba remains out of reach.
When the pandemic struck it seemed music news would dry up. But musicians found new ways to connect.
ArtsWatch Weekly: Abrupt shift at Oregon Children’s Theatre, art with an edge, a song that lingers.
Marc Mohan dives into a Wong Kar-Wai retrospective, films about working class heroes, films that take bad turns.
It’s impossible to summarize the scope and content of Jennifer Robin’s work: It contains multitudes.
An arts education nonprofit set out to film demonstrations in grade-school classrooms. Then came the pandemic.
Artists Rep and The Actors Conservatory join to create a new teaching and performing dynamic.
Portland Playhouse closes 2020 with an epic virtual theater festival. We talk with the people who created it.
The oil painter and former Newport mayor says she can’t separate politics and art.
To decorate, or not to decorate? K.B. Dixon and a Guy Named Will tell a winter’s tale of baubles and figurines.
I just have to tell you about this song I’ve had stuck in my head for the last nine months.
The Olalla Center’s event and a gallery tour are virtual, but Siletz Bay Music Festival is hoping to be live next summer.
Portland Opera’s free online recital series “Live From the Hampton Opera Center” goes contemporary.
Marc Mohan: Mall multiplexes may edge toward extinction, but independent art houses will survive.
Two arts “lifers” drop a debut record in the midst of the 2020 debacle. The hard questions began to drop, too.
“Eartha” at Adams and Ollman presents seven artists’ visions of the natural world.
The Oregon Composers Forum and the arts’ crucial role for individuals and society in troubled times.
Readings, workshops, poetry slams—Oregon’s writing scene continues, online. Amy Leona Havin tells you where.
Photographer K.B. Dixon takes a pandemic voyage into the rediscovered territories of home.
This year the holidays take on a somber tone. Will we have to leave some of our favorite traditions behind?
ArtsWatch Weekly: Holiday shows, making theatrical spirits bright, gallery art, new music, fresh flicks, passages.
The Portland choral director and educator leaves a rich legacy in sounds and singers.
Coaster Theatre will present, virtually, the Dickens classic as radio theater set during the Great Depression.
Scouring Bandcamp in time for Free First Friday: ambient metal, spaced-out hip-hop, Holiday and Young covers, a Nigerian comp, plenty more.
Martha Ullman West remembers Oslund, the Oregon dance legend, who has died at 72.
Third Angle and Portland artists compose and record free-download “soundwalks” for strolls in the parks.
Grace Stott’s ceramic sculptures at Fuller Rosen Gallery tackle everything from Venus figures to Cheetos.
December dance bustles with a stocking full of Nutcrackers, Christmas Carols, and the odd Happy Hour.
Most galleries remain shuttered this December due to Oregon’s Covid restrictions but there are still plenty of opportunities for virtual viewing.
With the lockdown screws tightening, Marc Mohan digs into the streaming services for some winning new films.
Portland’s Latinx theater and playwright Maya Malan-Gonzalez give “A Christmas Carol” a virtual update.
ArtsWatch Weekly: Passing art forward, Josie Seid’s America, Don Latarski’s wild art, remembering Bruce Browne.
One function of radio in the digital age is savvy curation. How All Classical’s programming fills the bill.
From pets to the pandemic, a Sitka Center project spurs discussion among second-graders about the year’s events.
A Yamhill County artist visited a local park over a year and came away with a series of pastels expressing her life.
Portland Center Stage’s associate artistic director: “We are making something new and we are making it very, very fast.”
Experiencing the natural acoustic and visual worlds of Don Latarski.
ArtsWatch Weekly: As Covid-19 turns the world inside again, the arts world delivers the goods in spite of it all.
Starting small but thinking big, Stumptown Stages has made itself a leader in equity and diversity.
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