Portland’s only non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to Oregon artists celebrates its tenth anniversary season in a fundraiser and “story-concert” event at the Fremont Theatre.
The Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble is turning ten! Since our first concert in January of 2008, the PJCE has been proving that Oregon jazz artists can make world-class music when the opportunity. On October 20th at the Fremont Theatre, we celebrate this important milestone by telling our story—how artists can build a network of support that allows them to reach new heights of creativity, and connects them to the most important conversations of our time.
The evening begins at 7 pm with appetizers and cocktails, and a silent auction benefitting the PJCE. Executive Director Douglas Detrick will give a brief presentation during this time about the organization’s vision for jazz in Portland.
At 8 pm, we celebrate this milestone with a “story-concert,” a performance by our ensemble interspersed with interviews with the composers. We’ll perform a new work by drummer/composer Barra Brown, “Night Shadows” by one of our Grasshoppers student composers Andres Moreno, and “Path 88” by Andrew Oliver, the PJCE’s founding Executive Director, who will join us via video.
Our featured composer, Barra Brown, is an up and coming artist who represents the best of what’s to come in Oregon jazz. He is an artist with diverse interests—from jazz to indie-folk to hip-hop—and works steadily as a drummer, composer, and producer, pursuing his own creative vision with his Barra Brown Trio and hip-hop duo Korgy and Bass, and supporting others in theirs, like the Shook Twins. His two PJCE Records releases, “Dreaming Awake” from 2015 and “Songs for a Young Heart” from 2013, show his inventive approach to songwriting and arranging, and incorporate a joyful, dynamic approach to the drumset.
The Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble is the only non-profit organization in the state dedicated exclusively to commissioning and performing new music by professional Oregonian composers. The 17-18 season will be the PJCE’s tenth, and we’ve distinguished ourselves in some key ways over that time. We designed a three-part programming philosophy to inform what we do: we strive to make every PJCE program unique, collaborative, and community-oriented.
We use this programming philosophy to help create a professional and cultural context in which Oregon-based jazz artists can do world-class work that participates in the most important conversations of our time. For us, this means that we try to push our community, from our composers to our audience, to think differently about how jazz is made, how it is consumed, how it is funded, and why we make it. We want our music to contribute to solutions to important problems.
Tickets available at pjce.org.
