February 8, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … A Symphony string quartet featuring Keiko Araki, Julie Coleman, Viorel Bejenaru and Ken Finch will be performing a chamber concert at the Estacada Auditorium on Friday, March 16 at 7 p.m. The 90-minute concert is appropriate for families. Tickets will be sold at the door. Prices are $10 for families, $5 for one adult and $3 for students and seniors. All proceeds benefit future Estacada community arts events.
The chamber concert is part of a two-year Community Music Partnership (CMP) between the Oregon Symphony, the City of Estacada, the Estacada School District and the local presenting organization, Estacada Together. The concert is made possible by a generous gift from the Estacada Community Foundation.
Oregon Symphony musicians and staff will continue residency visits to all schools in the Estacada School District on February 21 and 27 as part of the partnership. These visits will feature the strings as well as the woodwinds with quintets formed by Oregon Symphony musicians. The CMP calls for the Symphony’s extensive roster of musicians and staff to work with students, educators, local arts organizations and business leaders to strengthen existing programs while integrating new arts programming into Estacada’s school curriculum and the greater community by offering resources in music education, live performances and arts advocacy.
More than 45 residency activities will take place throughout the school district during the two day visit. On Wednesday, February 21, a string quintet featuring Jonathan Dubay, Fumino Ando, Brian Quincey, Tim Scott and Don Hermanns will present ensemble performances for K-6 students at Clackamas River Elementary in the morning and Eagle Creek Elementary in the afternoon. In addition, the quintet will hold “informances” with individual classes at the elementary level that provide a more in-depth look at the instrument and the life of a musician.
On Tuesday, February 27, the activities continue with a woodwind quintet featuring Martha Herby, Todd Kuhns, Karen Wagner, Mary Grant and Bob Naglee presenting ensemble performances and classroom “informances” for students at River Mill Elementary in the morning and Estacada High School in the afternoon. At the high school, the quintet will visit an art class to demonstrate the process of improvisation that will later be used to help the students create multi-media banners to a piece of jazz music while also using the improvisational process.
Also that afternoon, a string quintet featuring Greg Ewer, Inés Voglar, Joël Belgique, Adam Esbensen and Jeff Johnson will present ensemble performances for students at Estacada Junior High. The quintet will visit science classes to discuss with students the science of sound. They will also explore the relationship between math and music with the students. In addition, a string musician will hold an “informance” with a group of homeschoolers on Tuesday at Clackamas Valley Baptist Church.
Following monthly visits from Symphony musicians representing all of the instrument families, year one of the CMP will culminate in May 2007, with two full-orchestra youth concerts and a community concert.
As the Symphony’s leading and most comprehensive education and community initiative, the CMP focuses on rural or remote Oregon communities of 30,000 people or less. Symphony staff work with a local steering committee comprised of school district and city representatives, parents and community arts advocates to craft the orchestra’s presence to meet community music needs over the two-year period.
For more information about the Symphony’s Community Music Partnership, visit www.OrSymphony.org.
CMP funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Family Foundation and the PacifiCorp Foundation for Learning.