Thursday, August 27, 2009

Upcoming rehearsals and performances

Here is an update about our activities for September and beyond
Our rehearsals SO FAR are the following days --

August 31
September 7 -- this is Labor Day fyi
September 14
September 21
September 28
October 5

You can also mark your calendar for
September 12 -- in the morning sometime for a brief performance at a creative conference -- more details to follow
October 11 -- 3pm Mississippi Studios concert.

The week of September 28 and October 5 we will add some rehearsals, but I have yet to work out the scheduling and locations yet.

If you are interested in singing the William Stafford pieces in October and November, please plan to come to all of these rehearsals. If you can't make them and/or you are a quick study, please let me know (sarahdougher@gmail.com).

Pat and I will do our best to make all the music scores and sound files available to you. Please contact us if you need these (sarahdougher@gmail.com).

As usual, unless otherwise scheduled, our rehearsals are at 728 SW First Ave. from 7-9pm.

Please contact us if you have any questions! We sure appreciate your interest!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Caesar's Gate Videos

This piece is in ten parts. If you click on the tag "Caesar's Gate" and go to the Vimeo site where it lives, you can find the other 9 videos. Thanks to Chuck Barnes and Lois Levine for this documentation!



Caesar's Gate, Part 1 from Chuck Barnes on Vimeo.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Here's a great review + more

http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/blogs/back-row/

Hi,
check out this nice review of the show!

Also, our next meeting will be on April 13th, at something more like 7:15 than 7 on the dot.

We will meet at our usual spot, 728 NW First Ave.

Looking forward to meeting new people!

- SD and PJ

Saturday, April 4, 2009

We just had a great show!

Here are the two awesome pieces of press we got previewing the show:

here
http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2009/04/flash_choir_at_
mississippi_stu.html

and here
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3521/12366/



We will post any and all recordings of this event when we get our act together.

Please join us to sing on April 13, from 7-9 for the start of our spring season.

Email picasing@gmail.com for more information.

And thanks to everyone who came to the show today!!
We really appreciate your support and interest in our project!

Monday, March 16, 2009

24/7 performance this weekend

We are singing at midnight.
This promises to be an amazing event.



For immediate release
Contact: Bill Crane, cell phone 503-544-2455 or billcrane0252@msn.com
Portland, Oregon, Monday, March 2, 2009 ‹

By mid-March, the United States will have been at war in Afghanistan and
Iraq for seven years, yet one hardly hears that fact mentioned. To mark this
important, if tragic, anniversary, over 150 of the Portland area's best
classical musicians are uniting to make a giant musical gift to the city and
region. Event curators Bill Crane and Thomas Lauderdale have recruited an
amazing roster of performers. The public is invited.

Titled simply "24/7," it will be a series of 24 dramatic concerts, each
starting upon the hour, from 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 21, and continuing
through to 7:00 p.m., Sunday, March 22.

All 24 concerts are free and will take place in the auditorium of the
Wieden+Kennedy building, 224 Northwest 13th Avenue, between Davis and
Everett Streets, in Portland's Pearl District. Wieden+Kennedy join the
performing artists to invite sincerely all area residents of good will to
these concerts. No tickets are required.

Neither a protest nor a memorial, "24/7" nonetheless is a profound calling
by its performers to their fellow citizens to remember that we are a nation
at war. The musicians creating 24/7 hope to move their neighbors by their
music to "do what must be done" as our city, region, and nation face many
challenges. This will be music of encouragement as well as entertainment.

To add to the conviviality of this big occasion, the popular and
award-winning restaurant Bluehour, next door to the concert venue, will be
open all night and the following day. Restaurateur Bruce Carey and chef de
cuisine Kenny Giambalvo are planning a special bar menu just for 24/7
performers and audience members.

"It will be an honor to have these music lovers join us for refreshments
before, after, or between the concerts. We are having so much fun planning a
menu to go with that much music!," said says Bruce Carey as he considered
what it will mean for his restaurant team.
And, what of the planned music itself? --

"I am heartened, thrilled, and humbled by the unparalleled enthusiasm of my
musical colleagues to create this musical gift. What a 'Portland' thing to
do! Everyone is working so hard and being so creative in their programming.
Every program that our audience friends attends will be great,." said says
Bill Crane as he headed off to yet another rehearsal.

Some of the 24/7 performances will be broadcast on Wieden+Kennedy¹s new
Global Internet radio station, WK Radio, at www.wk.com/radio. The radio
station launched in January 2009 and exists to inspire provocative
conversations, interviews, and artistic expressions relating to the arts,
culture, music and media.

Final scheduling is still somewhat in the works and will be posted in
www.wk.com/radio when confirmed, but here are highlights that have been
nailed down:
Saturday, March 21
The first program (Sat., 3/21, 7:00 p.m. sharp) A huge ensemble of brass and
percussion players opens with Aaron Copland's famous "Fanfare for the Common
Man" and continues with music of Gabrieli, Richard Strauss, and others.
Second up (Sat., 3/21, 8:00 p.m.) is the astonishing 17-year year-old
virtuoso pianist Rosa Li, most recently heard in Portland in Mendelssohn's
First Concerto with the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Her solo
program will include works of Ginastera, Prokofiev, and Chopin.
At 9:00 p.m., the Portland Gay Men's Chorus, Bob Mensel, music director,
will take the stage to present the critically acclaimed extended work
"BraveSouls and Dreamers" of composer Robert Seeley.
Other highlights include three hours of particularly adventuresome
programming by area new-music ensembles playing in succession:
11:00 p.m., Fear No Music
Sunday, March 22
12:00 midnight, Melegari Chamber Music Ensemble
1:00 a.m. (Sun., 3/22), Third Angle New Music Ensemble
Programs in the middle of the night will range from wild to mild:
3:00 a.m., . Thomas Lauderdale of "Pink Martini" in a special, extravagant
program;
6:00 a.m., Pianist Ron Potts in an exceptional recital of Scarlatti,
Schumann, Ravel, and Bartok.
7:00 a.m., Obo Addy, world beat drummer, in a solo frenzy and Gregory Dubay,
cellist, and Bill Crane, pianist, in music of Brahms and Schubert.
And, as the day goes on:
8:00 a.m., Tamara Still, pianist, with Bach's "Goldberg Variations."
11:00 a.m., Pianist Jeffrey Payne of Fear No Music with ten movements from
Olivier Messiaen's monumental "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus."
12:00 noon, Vancouver tenor Les Green in a recital of French art song,
including little- known works of Saint-Saëns and Fauré.
1:00 p.m., Soprano Lisa Mooyman and Mezzo-soprano Sherry Olson with
Clarinetist David Hattner in a varied program, including the famous "Lakme"
duet and Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock."
4:00 p.m., Alto Angela Niederloh, pianist Janet Coleman, and violinist Julie
Coleman in a wide-ranging program best described as "rip-roaring."
5:00 p.m., Violinist Carol Sindell and pianist Janet Guggenheim (two-thirds
of The Florestan Trio) in a recital to include both the Franck and Debussy
sonatas.
6:00 p.m. All 24/7 artists and other invited musicians will join in the
final program to present the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the
"Ode to Joy." David Hattner, the new music director of the Portland Youth
Philharmonic, will conduct the assembled forces, including many singers from
the Portland Symphonic Choir and instrumentalists from the Oregon Symphony
and other ensembles.
Still shaking out just "who will be when" are these splendid acts to be
scheduled:
To check the final schedule of all 24 concerts, please consult
www.wk.com/radio
Portland Taiko, thunderous Japanese drumming;
Cellists Justin Kagan, Adriene Welch, Irving Levin, Gregory Dubay, and
Lizzie Adelsheim
Flutist Abby Mages
Violinists Paloma Griffin, Sara Watts, Ron Blessinger, Greg Ewer, Julie
Coleman, and Nick Crosa
Sopranos Ida Rae Cahana, Lisa Mooyman, Peggie Schwarz, and Marie Fiorillo
Trombonists John Walling and Robert Taylor
Pianists Carol Rich, Jon Stuber, Jeffrey Payne, Chad Heltzel, Susan Chan,
Mike and Elizabeth Strickland, Janet Coleman, Jerry Deckelbaum, Win Hall,
and Thomas Mark
To check the final schedule of all 24 concerts, visit www.wk.com/radio after
March 9th.Dozens of Portland's most accomplished musicians offer a huge gift
to the region.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Singing in Pioneer Square!

Hi Everyone!
Here's a link to our latest public show:
http://www.kgw.com/video/carney-index.html?nvid=339110
In the square with Thomas!

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Spring with the Flash Choir

Hello friends and strangers,
The Flash Choir will be performing the ENTIRETY of "Caesar's Gate," a piece written by Sarah Dougher, in early April.
It is for choir and electric guitar. We hope to have clips of other performances up here soon, but there has so far been no complete performance of the piece.
It is based on the work of poet Robert Duncan and visual artist Jess.
If you'd like to join us in singing, please contact picasing@gmail.com. We rehearse on Monday nights from 7-9. You need to join us by MARCH 2 to participate in this performance.
Following this performance, we will be working on a piece based on 10 poems by William Stafford, to be presented in October. Rehearsals for this begin in May.

Here's one to pique your interest:

Evolution

The thing is, I'm still
An animal. What is a spirit,
I wonder. But I only wonder:
I'll never know.

Night comes and I'm hungry.
Tempted by anything, or called
By my peculiar appetites,
I turn aside, faithfully.

What comes before me
Transforms into my life.
"Truth" I say, and it answers,
"I'm what you need."

I sing, and song shaped like a bird
Flies out of my mouth.

Videos of FC, PCP, Mirah, others, from Dec. 5 2008

Videos by Penny Jam.


Mirah, Portland Cello Project & Flash Choir - Generosity from Jon Manning on Vimeo.


Mirah, Portland Cello Project & Flash Choir - Hard Times are Over from Jon Manning on Vimeo.