Composers Cookoff: An “Iron Chef” fundraiser for Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble. Nobody loses, just a tastier future for Portland jazz artists!
(PORTLAND, OR)— Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble will host an online fundraiser event to support its blend of unique, collaborative, and community-oriented jazz programs. Loosely patterned after competitive cooking shows like Iron Chef and the Great British Baking Show, the PJCE version challenges three Portland jazz composers to create new music inspired by a musical “ingredient” that we’re sure will resonate with our audience during quarantine: Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” Each entry will be judged by a panel of Portland jazz community luminaries, with a gift awarded to the winner. We’ll be announcing all of our special guests over the next few weeks!
Plan on a light-hearted event that pokes fun at how the pandemic has kept us all at home a lot more these days. We’re also excited to talk about how PJCE will evolve to meet the serious challenges of a post-covid Portland. In addition to the three pre-recorded “musical bake-off” performances, PJCE will also unveil highlights of its new strategic plan.
Online event information:
Tuesday, December 1st, 2020, 7:00 pm PST.
http://pjce.org/event/cookoff
Streaming live at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/pjce-cookoff
Also streaming on our Facebook and Youtube pages.
This event is free. No ticket or registration required.
Donations greatly appreciated and strongly encouraged.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, PJCE has shifted from presenting quarterly concerts with its signature 12-member jazz ensemble to monthly online events featuring small groups of musicians performing in socially distanced, pre-recorded videos with coordinated audio releases on PJCE Records. The new PJCE strategic plan will provide more support for an inclusive community of jazz composers working with their own small groups in local Portland venues, and build a larger, more diverse audience to support the incredible musicians right here in our community. The PJCE large ensemble will resume public performances as soon as health and safety conditions allow. The large ensemble’s return to activity will include a new focus on providing expanded platforms for projects that began in the “incubator” of the small group program.
We hope the new focus will provide a runway for all local jazz artists, from student to established masters, to reach a larger audience, and for jazz as an expression of Portland’s unique cultural environment to blossom even more brightly than before the pandemic.
